Understanding Depression's Lies & Finding Comfort in God's Voice

Recently our family has begun walking through a journey of a loved one dealing with depression.  In that journey, we've learned that people who are depressed can find their thinking so clouded that they believe the lies about themselves and often open up channels of voices speaking cursing into their life because it confirms the emotional feelings that they are being slowly strangled by.  And that they will then turn the volume up on those voices that confirm the mess they think they are.

In the process, they also turn down the volume of God's voice, and the voices of those speaking God's message of blessing and identity into their life.

It's a powerful captivity that Satan loves to keep people in.  If he can destroy your understanding of your identity, he can choke the abundant life that Jesus has for you right out of existence.  He can close the pathway to your purpose and eliminate the glory that your story will bring to God and the blessing it will bring to others.

To those dealing with a depressed loved one, it can often inflict emotional wounds on you as well.  We don't fully understand the hurting that the loved one is trapped in and we don't always remember to view their responses to us accordingly.

Often in our plan to help, we can become stumbling blocks or even unwitting messengers of Satan.

That's why Psalm 23 is so iconic in the faith community.  It speaks to the deeply felt truth that God doesn't always deliver us from evil, but He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.  He fills our cup in the company of our enemies, not after removing them.  He allows us to continue on our journey through the valley of the shadow of death, but He comforts us with His presence in every step.

We often pray that God will deliver us from circumstances of pain and suffering.  He absolutely can, and He often does.  But sometimes He doesn't.  And it's in those moments that we need to be the most intentional about turning up the volume of God's voice when everything inside of us seems to confirm that we should close the God App and start live streaming the voices of the enemy confirming our deepest fears and justifying our pain.  Walking through depression is typically a "valley of the shadow of death" kind of Psalm 23 journey.  It takes time.  It takes trust.

The same book of Psalms that contain the famous 23rd Psalm, also intentionally gives us a vivid depiction of depression in the previous chapter,  Psalm 22:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest. Or night, and am not silent
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.Or Yet you are holy, / enthroned on the praises of Israel
In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads."

 "Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help."

"I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death."

 Those are just some excerpts, but it seems to me that they pretty vividly depict the agony of someone going through the valley of depression.  The torment.  The pain.  The distorted view of identity.  The seeming silence and distance of God.  The hopeless despair.  God understands it all.

I don't have answers.  I don't understand yet fully the journey we are on.  Reading Psalm 22 and 23 together, however, gives me greater clarity of my role and my burden to be a voice of blessing and not cursing.  It gives me greater insight into the experience of one dealing with depression.  It comforts me to know that God is in the midst of that pain, that God is walking through that pain, that God included passages like this in the Bible to show His heart and compassion for those walking through the valley of the shadow of death.  It speaks to my heart that God is good and that He is a loving Father to those shackled with the chains of depression and anguish.  It comforts me to know that Psalm 139 promises:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Nothing and no one is beyond the reach of a loving Father.  God is always there, reaching.  Even if we are in the pit of depression's hell, God is there.  He doesn't leave us or forsake us.  I pray and believe that on the other side of this journey our story will be one of victory and of bringing praise to God for a purpose re-found, an identity restored, and a faith expanded with the knowledge that we are who God says we are and that He delivers and sustains us and turns our mourning into dancing.  If that's you or your family, be encouraged that a loving Father sees each tear and knows each pain.

He is there.  Always.

Generational Faith - The Cornerstone is Relationship

It's easy to look at the anger, violence, and cultural disintegration of our nation and become fearful.  It seems rather hopeless.  It seems like lives are being wasted on the pursuit of the frivolous and that "claiming to be wise" we have become a nation of fools.

And that's partly true.  Selfies seem to matter more than selflessness these days.

But then you remember the power of GOD and how His love can transform a life in a MOMENT.

Children form their conception of WHO THEY ARE and WHO GOD IS from the adults and peers in their lives.  IDENTITY is typically realized in the context of community.  It isn't one person that defines who we are, it's a mosaic of the people in our lives.  The same is true of our view of God.  We typically don't form our opinion in a vacuum.  It is forged through the people in our lives, our experiences, and our own sense of identity.  So, when a kid's view of God and self is obstructed, it's devastating for their future.

As a high school English teacher, I once had a student who was a senior in high school and a pretty angry girl overall.  This was my first year of teaching and everything was new and confusing to me as I attempted to navigate old British literature with a room full of dynamic and sometimes explosive students.  This girl was often angry and combative, but she was usually fine for me.  Toward the end of her senior year, she asked me for a letter of recommendation.  She wasn't a stellar student, but she was on average a decent student for me, and I knew that my class was actually one of her better ones.

I agreed to write the letter, but I wasn't quite sure what I could say in it.  Before I had an opportunity to attempt a letter, she came in one day and lashed out in her anger at me.  She called me a curse word and made a scene.  I had no choice but to send her to the office and write her up. That afternoon, I called her home to share about the day's events and to tell her mom that I wouldn't be able to write a letter of recommendation at this time.  

I was not prepared for what came over the phone line.

Her mom assaulted me with a line of cursing directed not at me, but at her daughter.  She exclaimed, "I don't know why my daughter would want you to write a letter of recommendation because she is nothing but a B---- and a whore.  And if that whore thought that I was going to spend one penny on her to go to college to do nothing but sleep around, she's nuts.  That B----- is worthless.  I'm not surprised she acted like that.  She's trash."

I was stunned.  And in that moment, I realized how much power we have over the young people in our lives in defining who they are and what path they will take in life.

Suddenly, I saw this girl in an entirely new light.  If that level of anger and hatred was directed at her on a regular basis from her mother, no wonder she acted that way!  She defined herself in the confines of her mother's anger.  And that set her on the path leading to a lot of bad things.

Fourteen years later I still think about this girl.  I still pray for her on occasion, hoping that she somehow found a way to find peace in her life.  I hope that someone came into her life to speak words of hope and encouragement to her.  I hope that she had someone share with her that there was a future and hope planned for her before her birth and that she was loved beyond comprehension by her heavenly Father.

The sad reality for this girl and for many like her is that she's completely divorced from the idea of a loving parent.   Any concept of God that she might have had would spring out of that sea of anger and dysfunction.  God created her with a purpose and a plan.  Unfortunately, she might not see that because there are so many other voices shattering her self-image and obscuring her view of the path of life marked out for her by her Creator.

And here's the thing.  Maybe that started out small, but consider a ship at sea.  Personally, I get seasick on boats, so I don't like to think about them, but it's a good example, so stay with me.  If a ship is off course by just a small degree, it isn't noticeable at first.  But after a long time traveling on the wrong course, the ship gets farther and farther away from where it is meant to go.  The same is true of us.  When we start out life with a false understanding of who we are, who God is, and what it means to actively pursue and follow a relationship with Him, we end up off course.  It isn't noticeable at first, but after years pass by, we find ourselves nowhere near where God wants us to be and like nothing He designed us to be.  And that brings hurt, disappointment, and brokenness.  

The truth is that we all need someone speaking life into us, not just kids.  Parents are supposed to do that.  The church can help parents find a way to do that by partnering with them.  When you look at Deuteronomy 6:4-9, you will see that Moses spoke about the importance of the leaders in the community partnering with parents to ensure that the next generation of faith understood God in a personal way:

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

The transferring of faith from one generation to the next was about community and relationship and the cornerstone of this generational continuance of faith was to be the family.  Why?  Because following Jesus is not about an institution or a set of rules.  Following Jesus is about relationship and the best way to model and convey that to the next generation is through relationships.  That's why families and churches need to be intentional about how we convey a relationship with Jesus. 

It is for that reason that generational faith matters.  In his children's ministry book, Orange Essentials, Reggie Joiner said of children's ministry workers:

"You are the CHAMPIONS of family.  You are the ADVOCATES for the church.  But most
importantly...you are the MESSENGERS of of God ILLUMINATING, LOVING, and DEMONSTRATING His story of redemption to SONS and DAUGHTERS."

Imagine how different our culture would look if we just embraced this fully.  What if instead of focusing on PROGRAMMING in our churches, we focused on COMMUNITY? What if instead of focusing on filling the family calendar with ACTIVITIES, we focused it around being intentional and using every second to build relationships and impart GOD's INDENTITY for our children?  What if instead of seeing church as a place to SIT, we saw it as a place to SERVE and intentionally created opportunities for our kids to serve alongside of us?

There are so many angry and evil voices competing for your child's attention.  Don't let yours be one of them.  Don't passively accept that this is just the way things are.  Be intentional about finding people who will share your love for your child and impart the wisdom and hope that you do for them. And if you never had that yourself, there is good news--Jesus is all about restoring broken people.  There is a hope and future for you beyond your comprehension if you will just lean into Him.