But when you are experiencing depression, you don’t need a quick encouragement. You need a God who walks through pain with you. There is hope, even though you might not defeat depression quickly or easily like you would want.
One of our Summit church planters tells the story of when he first felt called to ministry, how he resigned from his job in Tennessee and moved his family to North Carolina to attend seminary, only to have everything fall apart. His marriage came within inches of destruction; he went into bankruptcy. The worst, he said, was holding his newborn son as he died in their arms. He said, “I had no words. All I could ask God during that season was, ‘Why?’ I didn’t want to talk about God or preach the words of God. I only wanted to rage against God. All I’ve done is try to follow him, and this is how he treats me?”
When you are experiencing depression, you don’t need a quick encouragement to defeat depression. You need a God who walks through pain with you.
The prophet Jeremiah was a real Christian, and he said his soul was depressed within him.
Charles Spurgeon was a real Christian, one who found deliverance from depression. He told his congregation, “I have spent more days shut up in depression than probably anybody else here.” He was said by many to be the greatest preacher to ever live, and he frequently considered quitting the ministry because he was so depressed.
Martin Luther was a real Christian, and he went through times so dark that his wife would remove all the knives from their home for fear he’d kill himself. “For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell,” he wrote. “I trembled constantly. I could find no thoughts of Christ, only of desperation and blasphemy of God.”
Can you see you are not alone in your thoughts? The greatest Christians in history were not those that God delivered from all pain and misery but those who found deliverance from depression through their pain and misery. He is ready to walk with you through the darkness and do the same for you.
This article about deliverance from depression originally appeared here.
