Does the Bible talk about depression?
Google Maps have made giving verbal directions pretty rare these days.
Have you ever had someone talk you through directions to get somewhere? We don’t do that as much as we used to since we all have access to Google Maps and its street view, but I can listen very intently to someone telling me how to get somewhere and then promptly get myself lost along the way. It is one thing to understand those directions and even to be able to repeat them back, but it is quite another thing to apply those directions when the rubber meets the road.
Our faith walk can be like that when it comes to our relationship with the Bible. There are times when it is important to gain intellectual knowledge about the Bible so that we can better grasp what an author is trying to communicate to his audience. This practice keeps us in line with an interpretation as close as possible to the author’s intent, but if we stop there, we will have an intellectual knowledge of Scripture without any idea how to change our lives. When we are struggling, we don’t need more knowledge. We need Scripture to be alive and active in our own situation. We need more application and practical tools that will guide us through our times of suffering.
My day of reckoning in this regard came the year that I left home for college. By that point in my life, I had been a Christian for a decade, and I had a pretty solid grasp of the basics of the Bible. This period of my life was also the beginning of my lifelong struggle with depression. I believed that the Bible was my handbook for life, so it had to have the answers for how to overcome depression. I read the Book of Job. I did a study of “joy” in the Bible. But none of my usual deep dives provided anything that helped me get out of bed every day. Even those who knew me and how much I was struggling were not able to lay out the truth of Scripture in a way that gave me practical tools for my mental health.
So I went through a period of darkness where I dropped out of college, isolated from friends and other believers, and I gave in to my depression. During this period, I searched for lifelines I needed to survive. God must have something to say to me in His Word about depression and about how to care for my mental health. When I finally chose to go to therapy, I discovered many cognitive-behavioral tools that helped me progress in my healing. As I compared these tools with what I was studying in Scripture, I realized that the Bible did have some practical application for depression in the stories of other saints who had faced this very human struggle before. People like Elijah, Job, David, Paul, Naomi, Tamar, several of the psalmists, and so many more had all dealt with depression in some form.
So here are some things that I learned about depression in Scripture and what God really has to say about the realities of this mental health disease:
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Take Elijah. He was a prophet who had been bold in standing against an idolatrous culture to hold the king of Israel accountable for his sins. Elijah was God’s mouthpiece in accomplishing great miracles. Surely this kind of faith could never encounter depression!
Yet we see in 1 Kings 19 that Elijah became so despondent that he wanted to die. And he didn’t just get up to commit suicide. He asked God to take his life—fully believing that God had the power to do so. Elijah’s suicidal depression did not overshadow his faith in God. He experienced both simultaneously.
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Take Job. Job’s depression was so intense that he sat in sackcloth and ashes and was completely silent for seven days (Job 2:13). When he finally spoke, he cursed the day he was born (Job 3:1). Job displayed all the typical symptoms of depression that psychiatrists use to diagnose depression today: He had trouble sleeping (Job 7:3-4). He was tired all the time (Job 3:26). He had no appetite for food. He was irritable and short-tempered as indicated by his reactions to his friends’ attempts to comfort him. He had lost interest in things he once enjoyed and lived in a perpetual gloom. He neglected his personal hygiene, scratching his boils with pottery shards. Job’s depression could not be resolved by simply “cheering up.” His intense physical and emotional symptoms make it clear that depression affects all aspects of ourselves. To advise someone to cheer up in response to these emotions invalidates those feelings and makes someone who is struggling feel like they are defective for not being able to overcome their emotions.
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Take Paul’s struggle with the thorn in his flesh. While we do not know what specific suffering Paul faced, most scholars agree that this thorn was some kind of physical disability or chronic illness. Although Paul prayed for healing, God did not grant his request. He chose to teach Paul a lesson about His grace through the struggle. Paul’s story shows us that God does not shame us for struggling with the same thing over and over. Rather, He promises that His grace is sufficient to cover any of our weaknesses.
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Take the son of Korah who wrote Psalm 42. While it is clear that the psalmist is struggling with something, he cannot point to a specific cause. He can only cry out, “Why are you so downcast, Oh my soul?” Compare his experience with the grief of Naomi who lost her husband and two sons (Ruth 1) or the trauma of Tamar who was assaulted by her own brother (2 Samuel 13). In the cases of these women, unlike for the psalmist, their experience of depression had a distinct cause. Scripture shows us that depression happens whether or not depression can be located to a specific root cause.
In this Series, we will be studying the lives of some of these saints who have struggled with depression. What practical tools did they find for overcoming depression? What can we learn about the underlying causes of depression? What practical tools can help us today to restore physical, mental, and spiritual health? Thanks for joining me on this journey. I’m praying for you as you discover the power of God’s Word to speak to the deepest sadnesses and hurts you are struggling with today.
