Remedy For Depression

Hope is available even to those who are depressed.

As one who has suffered several bouts of situational and seasonal depression and have been on meds for depression, I understand the deep hopelessness that pervades most thoughts and emotions during the depressed time. It is easy to realize how David himself could have experienced depression when he wrote the lines, “If I make my bed in the depths,.…If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me….’” “My tears have been my food day and night….” Depression feels like being in dark depths where all hope seems lost.

Yet, we know these passages from Psalm 139 and 42 are commentary on the inner pain David felt in his depressed circumstances. David, though, ultimately discovers that God’s love for him is so lavish that He would meet David in the depths and would turn darkness into light. As turned his face to God for hope, David would challenge himself and declare:

“If I make my bed in the depth, you are there” (139:8).
“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 light to you” (139:11-12).
“My tears have been my food day and night,…Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (42:3a, 5).

Lost hope is found in God.

Paul wrote, “And may the God of hope fill you will all joy and peace by your faith in him, until, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you overflow with hope” (Romans 15:13). Hope is available and is experienced by holding on until the Holy Spirit pours in refreshing hope into your very being. And the evidence that we have hope is the fruit of the Spirit – joy and peace.

One of the schemes of the enemy is to convince us that God doesn’t care for us and that we must suffer alone in depression. Both of these lies designed to isolate us in the depression itself. One of the best ways to break the enemy’s lies while we wait in faith for the Holy Spirit’s overflow of hope is to find the five most hopeful, joyful, and peaceful people that you know and get them on you side praying for you daily until you receive your breakthrough of overflowing hope.

I have experienced both depression and hope – hope beats depression hands down.
To listen to Pastor Greg Haswell’s recent Sunday sermon entitled “The Remedy for Depression”, please click here: https://northlandschurch.com/watch/try-this-at-home/the-remedy-for-depression.