I subscribe to a blog by author and teacher Terry Powell. One of his recent emails asked the question, “For a person diagnosed with major depression (recurring episodes), what does ‘victorious Christian living’ look like?” I think that is a question worth considering. Every person’s experience is different, but here are a few observations from my lifelong experience of recurring depression:
- Faith doesn’t mean that all struggles cease, but growing faith does mean that I’m learning to depend on God more fully and more often. There is much that I know I could not do apart from God enabling me to keep going. And when my faith feels weak, I still know that it is God who promises to hold onto me and not vice versa.
- Christian joy and hope don’t mean the absence of sorrow and tears, but remembering that one day every tear will be wiped away. (See my earlier post on the Root and Fruit of Hope.) When I don’t feel like singing songs of praise, not only does Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, understand how I feel, but He’s also given me the Body of Christ to sing on my behalf.
- Enduring suffering doesn’t mean pretending it doesn’t exist or hiding it from others. But it also doesn’t mean sitting passively and watching life pass you by. It usually means doing the next thing whether you feel like it or not. Wash the dishes, trim the bushes, go to the office, go to church, get counseling, get some exercise, etc.
I don’t want to hold myself up as some kind of success story or model for everyone else. There are many times when I feel like I’m failing as a Christian and as a person. During one particularly rough season of life I missed a lot of days of work (back when working from home was not an option). My counselor at the time encouraged me to set some goals that would give me a sense of purpose and a destination. That’s when I decided to pursue martial arts and also to go back to seminary part time. Although those things are no longer part of my regimen, they gave me some new relationships and an outlet for my stresses. They also ingrained in me the habit of showing up even when I don’t feel like it.
I think sometimes in the church we confuse legalism and discipline. I read my Bible and write in my prayer journal daily and attend church each week, not because I think God expects me to do so, and not to secure my salvation. I do it because I know that it is for my own benefit and growth in Christ. Likewise, I don’t go to work just to pay the bills or because other people expect me to show up (though that’s all true), but because it is good for me to focus on something besides myself. And I don’t exercise because the doctor tells me to, but because I know I will feel better if I do.
There are still days when I don’t want to keep enduring and I pray “How long, O Lord?” Right now I can’t remember the last time I made it through a whole week without any tears. Although I often don’t feel like a “victorious Christian,” I know that victory is ultimately in God’s hand and that He uses weak and wounded people to accomplish His will in this world.
It struck me this week that Psalms 138 and 139 can go together:“For though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly… The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me… If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me… In Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (138:6, 8; 139:9-10, 16).
God’s path may often lead us through dark valleys, but He will fulfill His purposes because He is the One who walks with us and upholds us through it all. We just need to keep taking one step after another.
“Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; When I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:8).
“The steps of a man are established by the Lord… though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand” (Psalm 37:23-24).
