Reasons for Hope: An Open Letter to the Depressed
Dear Friend,
It's probably best that I show you my cards up front so I don’t mislead you. My aim in this admittedly long letter is not analysis of your depression, nor is it a solution. If I thought I could pinpoint the singular cause of your depression, I would eagerly do so. If I had a solution for depression, I would surely give it to you. But the causes and solutions of depression are not so simple and are beyond the scope of a letter. There are plenty of books out there that can help you understand contributing factors and possible solutions.
The aim of this letter, instead, is hope. To pierce the darkness with a bit of light, to crack open the door that leads out of the pit. And it’s not even general hope that I’m after. I want to help you find hope in God. Will you allow me to do that, or at least to try?
I appreciate your willingness. I know I am entering into territory that most are not allowed to trespass. As I try with all my might to get you hoping, I will do my best to make my words careful and considerate, using no more force than is necessary. I know how easily I can lose you.
My method is simple: I want to give you reasons for hope.[2] No, I’m not going to try to talk you out of your depression. I would if I could. I do, however, want to talk you into hoping. I want to infuse your depression with hope, to inject it with the hope of Christ. Thank you again for allowing me to do this. Now let’s begin.
First reason for hope: you are saner than you know. No, I don’t think you’re crazy. In fact, there is something altogether sane about deep sorrow. Being overwhelmed by the darkness of life means you are not blind to the truth: that this world we live in is not the way it’s supposed to be. As author Zack Eswine puts it, “In this fallen world, sadness is an act of sanity, our tears the testimony of the sane.”[3] We are surrounded by so much need, pain, emptiness and evil – how could you not be sorrowful? When that sorrow crosses the line into depression, you are no less sane for your loss of hope. Depression over such things does not mean you have lost your mind, in fact it means your mind perceives the brokenness of the world around you better than most. Despite the outer numbness, there is feeling, even deep sensitivity within. And even if there is no particular grief that has sent you into depression, even if circumstantially all is well around you, you are still more aware of our broken reality than most people. In this sense, of course you are depressed.
Second reason for hope: your depression is a form of suffering. You are suffering, and that is the place to begin your search for hope. The first question to ask is not, “What am I doing wrong? What did I do to get into such a place?” The self-loathing tendency of the depressed tends to start with such questions and get no further than more self-loathing. So let’s wait and ask those questions later. We need a little more hope in the conversation first. Plus, you need to receive a bit more compassion before answering.
As I said, you are suffering. Neither of us may know exactly why you are depressed, but I will give you this: don’t assume that your depression is caused by sin anymore than you would assume an aching stomach is caused by cancer.[4] It could be the case, yet there are many other reasons for a stomachache. When we automatically connect depression and sin, we close ourselves off to something we sorely need to begin healing: compassion. Let’s leave the questions about sin for later in the process.
To understand depression first as suffering is to open yourself up to the compassion of God and trusted friends. And though not all will give it, this will make it possible for you to find friends who are full of mercy, having also suffered, who have themselves been prisoners in what Pilgrim’s Progress calls The Castle of Despair.
Besides that, when you begin by understanding depression as suffering, you open yourself to the fullness of God, who is not only gracious towards sinners, but merciful towards sufferers. God loves the depressed and delights in giving them hope. Ask him for help and then look for the arrival of his mercy. If you don’t know what to say or how to ask, the Psalms are full of words for us to use as we reach for hope:
“Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord,
for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?”[5]
Third reason for hope: Jesus was a Man of Sorrows. You might be tempted to think that no one knows what you are going through. Most of all, sitting on his throne in heaven, God surely has no idea what this is like for you.
Yet Isaiah 53 refers to Jesus as “a Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief.”[6] Indeed, if we read the Gospels, we will see the sorrow and anguish of Jesus everywhere. He sighs loudly over the man who cannot hear. He weeps hot tears over the grave of Lazarus. He says he is under “deep distress” and dread until he gets through the task of the Cross, and the night before his crucifixion he says, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.”[7] Believe it or not, he knows pain and suffering deeper than you will ever know.
This is meant to be a comfort for us. Perhaps not the kind we want, which is simply for the depression to go away (or for us to cease existing). Rather than simply relieving or solving the problem, he begins by giving compassion. And that compassion comes to us in the form of his own suffering. After all, the Latin form of the word “compassion” literally means “to suffer with.” God’s compassion is no mere words on a page or sympathetic words. No, he left the comfortable throne behind and parachuted into this dark world. He ripped a hole in the heavens and climbed down into the human condition, becoming like us, men and women of sorrows.
We often think of the Cross as the place where Jesus the Man suffered for us, in our stead. And that is true. Yet it is also the place where Jesus as God suffered with us, as one of us. In your depression you may feel utterly forsaken. Yet in his cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[8] we see something different. The farthest thing from forsaking us, he entered into our pain, heaving, weeping, pleading, bleeding with us. We have been given the gift of his own suffering, literally his compassion, the most powerful source of comfort for our own suffering.
“There are dungeons beneath the Castle of Despair” Charles Spurgeon said.[9] Perhaps you have spent time in those dungeons before or are even there now. Even so, because of the Man of Sorrows, you will never go so deep that you will not find engraved on the wall, “Jesus was here.” You will never fall so far into the bottomless pit that you can truly say, “He doesn’t know.” He does, and therefore, he is full of compassion for you.[10]
Fourth reason for hope: help comes from outside of you, not within you. One of the most hopeless things about depression is the knowledge that we cannot rescue ourselves from it. We have tried – oh, how we’ve tried! And yet the futility of our efforts has only increased our hopelessness.
We know well what Psalm 88 means when it says, “I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow.”[11] We know that if it’s up to us, we’re doomed.
The good news is that it’s not up to us. Sure, we have a part to play. But rescue will have to come from above, from outside of us, from beyond our weak, mortal bodies. Another word for this rescue is “grace.” An undeserved gift from above. As Charles Spurgeon puts it, “The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison needs a heavenly hand to push it back.”[12] The Psalmists are experts at reminding themselves of this, often shouting at their own souls, “Hope in God! In God, I tell you, not yourself!”[13]
If this is up to you alone, I admit it, it is hopeless. But the door to hope begins to open when you realize that you were never meant to depend on yourself. The Creator did not design his creatures to thrive apart from him. The Father did not adopt his children so that they could live as orphans.[14] He does not expect you to be your own Rescuer. He will, indeed, have a part for you to play in Operation Hope, but the power and the plan and the resources are his own. As I’ve said, it may or may not be part of his plan to remove your depression or change your circumstances,[15] but at the very least we can take him at his Word that he wants to give us hope.
Are you willing to look beyond yourself for help? It takes a lot of humility to do so. It risks disappointment, and you have known plenty of that. Even still, I assure you that there is much more hope to be found beyond you than within you.
Fifth reason for hope: not everything is unworthy of hope. Depression tends to reveal the impermanence and insecurity of the world around you. In other words, it tends to show you why nothing is worthy of your hope. You are more aware than anyone of the empty, transient, and unreliable reality of life.
You shrink back from all the things you love (or once loved), knowing that they will fail you. You will eventually be parted from your children, either by their death or yours. You are sure that your marriage, if it’s not unhappy now, will be sooner or later. Your job is a never-ending slog, and even if you make it to retirement, then what? Whittle away the time before you go to the grave. You ask with Solomon, what’s the point?[16] Although depression mixes the truth with all kinds of lies, it is at least telling the truth about the impermanence of life. You know something that most of us want to avoid: everything around you, including yourself, is infected with death.
There is something, however, over which death has no power. Kingdoms rise and fall, dictators come and go, the rich and powerful return to the dust. Mountains erode, rivers run dry, suns explode. Yet there is one thing, I tell you, that death has not infected. You are right, you will be parted from your children, disappointed in marriage, frustrated in your work, and you will, one day, die. And yet, not all who go to the grave perish.
The only thing over which death has no power is the only person who has ever overcome death: Jesus Christ.[17] That’s what the resurrection is all about. He is the one thing in all the universe that is permanent, secure, reliable, everlasting. He is the only being in existence who will never pass away. Every other person, place, thing, or idea will fail you, and you know this well. Everything will perish – except what has been joined to him.[18] Though mountains fall into the sea and the earth gives way, like Noah in his ark, whoever takes refuge in the Son will survive, or better said, will be raised to new life. The good news, of course, is that you have been invited into Christ. Yes, even you. You have been invited to share in his indestructible, everlasting life. This is what Hebrews refers to when it says, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”[19]
In some ways those of us who wrestle with depression have a leg up on those who do not, for we will not fall for the lie that there is hope in this world. The depressed are not as easily tricked into buying into the offer of hope in this life. And yet we often go too far with that, casting our disillusionment with this world onto God. We think that God, too, must be infected with the same curse and death that everything else is. The resurrection proves this wrong, showing us the one thing, the one Person, who is no longer under the curse that dominates our world.
So what do you think? I will whole-heartedly agree with you about the emptiness of this world. Are you willing to consider with me the possibility that there is something permanent and secure beyond this world that is worthy of your hope? Will you entertain the resurrection of Jesus as the answer to the death that you see infecting everything and everyone around you?
Sixth reason for hope: the Bible is a rich source of hope. If you search the Scriptures for passages on depression, you’ll be able to find some. The Psalms go there quite a bit – Psalms 6, 42, and 88 for example. Prominent individuals like David, Job, and Elijah go through it. The Psalms give us words to pray in our depression. The depressed individuals of the Bible help us know we are not alone. Even so, is that all God has to say on the matter?
Thankfully, we have something far richer and more available than the few times depression is specifically mentioned in the Bible. We don’t have to wring out those texts for a few drops of hope. Instead, hear Romans 15:4 - “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Paul is saying something profound. Why was the Bible written? So that we would have hope. Now, that is not the same thing as saying it was written so we wouldn’t feel depressed, but it is related. What he means is that Scripture was written to give us hope so that as we face the future, we would not be in dread. So that as we see the brokenness of the world around us, we would not despair. So that as we see the corruption of our own souls, we would not give up.
You have likely not seen such prevalence of hope in Scripture before. So what is Paul talking about? Where is this hope?
It is everywhere. Poke Scripture at any point and it will bleed hope. At the disgraceful Fall of Man, we are given hope that our shame will be covered by sacrifice.[20] At the rescue of Israel, we are given hope that there is a God who hears the prayers of the weak and vulnerable.[21] At the parting of the Red Sea, we are given hope in the God who makes a way where none is possible.[22] In the moral failure of King David, we are given hope that God loves sinners.[23] In the Incarnation of Jesus we are given the hope of God-with-us.[24] In his suffering we are given hope that there is a God who has compassion on us.[25] In his Cross we are given the hope of forgiveness.[26] In his Resurrection we are given the hope of new life.[27] At Pentecost we are given the hope of the Spirit, who can overcome our sinful hearts and weak minds.[28] In the end, the people of God are given the hope that all shall be made well, and that all of this world and all that we have suffered and experienced is just the preface of a story that is incomparably better.[29]
The people and stories and poems of Scripture are put down in writing to give us hope in God. If you read the Bible looking for tips and solutions for depression, you will likely be disappointed. If you read the Bible looking for hope, and for the God of hope, you will not be disappointed. He has given Holy Scripture to be a rich mine of hope for the inhabitants of this broken world. Mine it! He has given us his Word as a well of hope to keep us from weariness. Drink from it! It is a river that will not run dry, a source of food that will nourish and sustain the hopeless heart when all else fails.[30]
Seventh reason for hope: you are not a slave to depression. You are no slave to depression. Now, that does not mean that you can control how you feel. What I mean is that while depression may have an unshakable grip on your mind, its grip on your soul is weak. Depression cannot keep you from living a wise and godly life. God does not promise freedom from the pain of the darkness, and it surely makes obedience far more difficult and unappealing, but it does not have the power to make you sin or keep you from following Jesus.[31]
Have you ever noticed how depression eagerly, secretly pursues the lordship of your life? It’s constantly demanding all sorts of things:
“Cancel lunch with that friend, do you even like them?”
“You’ll have to break your promise to jump on the trampoline with your children, you’re in no mood for fun.”
“Don’t bother with worship this Sunday, you’ll just be faking it.”
“Forget reading Scripture. You don’t even believe that stuff anymore.”
“Get another glass of wine – why not a bottle?”
“The easiest way to get the pain out is with a razor.”
“You deserve a little escape from the pain, how about a little pornography?”
“Share your heart with your husband? Seriously? He won’t understand.”
“Call in sick to work again. You can’t deal with that stress today.”
The demands of our depression will usually seem reasonable and appealing at first glance. And of course, there are times to take your state of mind into consideration. Yet that is very different from allowing depression to reign over your life as lord. For the Christian, depression is not our master, and we are not its slave. Though we may not be free from the suffering of depression, having been set free from sin and given the Holy Spirit, believers do not have to submit to depression and allow it to control their lives.[32] Depression may make obedience a thousand times harder. What is simple and easy for others may require a gargantuan effort from us. Yet there is hope in knowing that whatever demands it makes, it really has no spiritual authority over the believer.
Obeying depression will always lead us further down into the dark void of hopelessness, while living for God in spite of depression often leads to some measure of relief. Even so, that relief is not the main point of this. The main point – the hope in this – is that depression cannot keep you from knowing and worshiping God, from following Christ, from loving your neighbor. There is hope in knowing that your depression cannot keep you from being truly human, fulfilling the calling placed on you by your Creator and Redeemer.
You may have to follow Christ with a limp.[33] Many of us do. Your love for your neighbor may be checkered with inconsistency. You may feel out of place among other believers. You may stumble as you carry your Cross. Even so, you are doing what you were made to do, and even depression cannot take that away. If you are in Christ, depression cannot rob you of the essence of your God-given humanity.
Eighth reason for hope: your depression is lying to you. That doesn’t sound very hopeful, yet it is when you realize that everything is not as hopeless as your depression says it is. Depression is a compulsive liar, and if you don’t recognize that, you will fall for its lies daily and live in them. Depression is like a pair of glasses that shades everything a particular color. And if you are unaware that you are wearing that pair of glasses, unaware that your vision is distorted, you will be utterly convinced that what you see is reality. You will stand your ground, stubbornly insisting that the white sofa is blue, and that your friend who thinks it is white is a nut. Yet if you are aware that you are wearing blue-tinted glasses, you can agree with your friend even though you see something different. Even if you don’t take them off, you can entertain the possibility that their vision is more accurate than yours.
Similarly, depression will cast a hopeless shadow over everything. And even though you can’t take off the lens of depression, you can be aware that your senses may be lying to you, that what you feel and see and think may not be true. This makes it possible to affirm and even live by what is true, even when your experience is telling you otherwise. This applies to all kinds of things, big and small, trivial and eternal. When you are aware that you can’t see clearly, you are much more likely to listen to those around you and trust their perspective rather than your own.
You may be convinced that you are a terrible father or mother, yet your children love you and enjoy being around you and affirm your goodness to them. Will you listen to your children or your depression?
All the data of the economy and your workplace may convince you that you will lose your job any day now. Yet your boss tells you to keep up the good work and that your position with them is secure. Will you believe your boss or your depression?
You are convinced your spouse is going to leave you, that you are a worthless husband / wife, unworthy of love and devotion. Yet your spouse says they are not going anywhere, that they are with you ‘til the end, in sickness and in health, even saying they need you. Will you trust your spouse or your depression?
You have no doubt that God has forsaken you, that you are being punished for your sins, that his love and goodness applies to everyone except you. Yet God says he will never leave you nor forsake you, that Christ was punished for your sins, and that he “is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”[34] Will you put your faith in his Word or in the words of your depression?
The good thing is, in one sense, your doubt about these things doesn’t matter. Your doubt doesn’t make them less true just as believing the sky is orange does not make it any less blue. If you are an adopted child of God, for instance, your doubt doesn’t suddenly orphan you from the Father.[35] Even so, believing and living out the lies of depression can do a great deal of damage. It can certainly lead you further into the bottomless pit. Yet if you can recognize that what you see and feel and sense is being colored by your depression, you can learn to live by faith without feeling.
Now, it is very possible to believe and yet not feel, to love and yet be numb, to have hope and yet feel hopeless. The feelings of numbness and hopelessness that accompany depression may not have much to do with your reality. It is quite possible that your body is not getting the message from your soul that you have hope in God.[36] It is for those who follow him without feeling that Jesus said, “Blessed are those who have believed without seeing.”[37] Faith without sight is no less difficult than faith without feeling. If you are living out your faith without feeling, you are blessed – more than those who believe with feeling.
Ninth and final reason for hope: the New Creation. You have probably heard heaven described as a very spiritual place to which we ascend after death, leaving behind our old bodies for an angelic existence, trading in this chaotic world for the peaceful realm of the divine. However, the “heaven” presented to us in Scripture is surprisingly earthly and sensual, depicted with the metaphors of food and drink, music, fine clothes, jewelry, crystal clear rivers and lush fruit trees.[38] “Heaven,” it turns out, is a recreated earth, a world that has been reset to the Manufacturer’s settings.[39] You are invited to inhabit this recreated earth.
Although at death your body and soul will be separated for a time, that is not how you will spend eternity. Your body and soul will be reunited again in the resurrection. True, your body will go into the grave, but only to await the resurrection, when it will be recreated and become “incorruptible,” immune to age and disease and depression and pain.[40] In the words of CS Lewis, you will “one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”[41] And just as you now see everything infected with the curse of death, you will then see everything infused with the blessing of Christ’s resurrection. There will be no capacity for hopelessness. Better yet, there will no longer be any reason for hope, since hope will have blossomed into reality.
On that note, it is now time to bring this letter to an end. If some of what I have said has gotten you hoping, praise God. At the same time, I grieve with you, dear friend, for the darkness you have endured, and for the darkness that remains. I have said what I could, and now I’d better be quiet and entrust you to the Savior.
In hope,
David
[2] I Peter 3:15
[3] Eswine, Zack. Spurgeon's Sorrows: Realistic Hope for Those Who Suffer from Depression. Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2017.
[4] Welch, Ed. Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness. New Growth Press: Greensboro, NC. 2011. Pp 25-32.
[5] Psalm 6:2-4. The Holy Bible (NIV)
[6] Isaiah 53:3
[7] Mark 14:33; Matthew 26:38
[8] Matthew 27:46
[9]Dallimore, Arnold. Spurgeon: A New Biography. The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991.
[10] Hebrews 4:14-16
[11] Psalm 88:8-9
[12]Spurgeon, Charles. Lectures to My Students. Hendrickson Publishers: Peabody, MA, 2010. Pp 163.
[13] Psalm 42:5, 11
[14] Galatians 4:4-6
[15] II Corinthians 12:7-10
[16] Ecclesiastes 1-2
[17] I Corinthians 15:55-57
[18] John 5:24
[19] Hebrews 6:19
[20] Genesis 3:21
[21] Exodus 2:24-25
[22] Exodus 14:14
[23] Psalm 51
[24] Matthew 1:23
[25] Hebrews 4:14-16
[26] Colossians 2:12-14
[27] Romans 6:1-4
[28] John 14:16-17
[29] Revelation 22
[30] Psalm 19: 7-8
[31] Romans 6:5-7
[32] Romans 6:11-14
[33] II Corinthians 12:7-10
[34] Psalm 34:18
[35] I John 3:20
[36] Ed Welch speaks similarly of panic attacks in his article in the Journal of Biblical Counseling, Spiritual Growth in the Midst of Psychiatric Diagnoses
[37] John 20:29
[38] Revelation 19: 6-9; 21: 9-21; 22:1-5; Luke 14:15-24
[39] Isaiah 65:17-25
[40] I Corinthians 15:35-49
[41] Lewis, CS. The Weight of Glory. HarperOne: New York, NY, 2001. Pp 45.
