Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness (13 page)

Figure 13.1. The Development of Depression.

Things don’t simply happen to us. When they do, we respond with an immediate interpretation of their meaning and significance. We filter the event through our view of God, others, and ourselves that we have been developing throughout our lives.

For example, let’s say that someone didn’t say hello to you at church. You interpret it: “She is angry at me”; “She is a snob”; or “She must have a lot on her mind. I need to give her a call.”

It rains the entire weekend you had set aside to paint some outside woodwork. You interpret it: “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” which means, “I can’t believe God is doing this to me.” Or
you might say, “I still believe that God is good even though I am disappointed. I believe he is even in these details.”

These interpretations make a difference even when depression might have physical causes. Mental pain usually needs an interpretive push to send it to the hell and hopelessness we call depression. All pain is interpreted pain. With this in mind, turn your attention to what is going on within you. You will find that you are much busier than you think.

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
¹

Your story, your interpretations, your motivations, and your beliefs come out of your heart. This is the center of your life. The heart oversees the “whys.” Why work? Why play? Why love? It is
the
defining feature of humanness.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov. 4:23)

Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matt. 12:34)

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. (Luke 6:45)

As you can guess by this point, when you get to the farthest reaches of the human heart, you will find that it has everything to do with God. All life is lived
coram deo
(before the face of God). This
doesn’t mean that we are always
conscious
of God. Teens who violate parental commands rarely perceive their infractions as personal attacks against their parents. They are thinking,
I want to go my own way. I want independence. My disobedience is “nothing personal.”

All of life, however, is personal. At some level, all people know God (Rom. 1:21). We don’t just have a fuzzy idea that there is a god, gods, or “higher power” out there somewhere. Within the human heart, there is a personal knowledge of the God who is, and we are either trusting him or something else. To use more religious language, we are either worshipping him, or we are worshipping idols such as pleasure, money, success, and love. Ultimately, the heart is either/or.

Who do you love? God or the world? (Deut. 6:5; 1 John 2:15)

Who do you trust? God or people? (Jer. 17:5–8)

Who (or what) do you worship? God or gods? (2 Kings 17:36)

Who will you serve? God or money? (Matt. 6:24)

Who do you obey? God or the Devil? (1 John 3:10)

For whose glory do you live? God’s or your own? (Rom. 1:21–23)

Where is your treasure? In God or the world? (Matt. 6:21)

To whom do you belong? To God or Satan? (John 8:44)

Some teenagers who have been raised in church have very selfconsciously turned away from God. They know God exists, and they even believe the gospel is true, but they want to go their own way. Their allegiances are to their own desires rather than God.

Some people might not think about God at all. They don’t consciously deny him or acknowledge him. Their hearts, however, are revealed when they are suddenly angry with God for bringing some difficulty into their lives. For example, a hard-working businessman considered himself a-religious—he just didn’t think about God. But on the day his business burned to the ground, he cursed God and vowed never to enter a church for the rest of his life. He knew that God existed.

Some people claim to be atheists. They have thought about whether or not God exists and chosen to believe that there is no God. But here again the heart will be revealed. You might find a profound fear of death, consultations with palm-readers, or a mid-life crisis that indicates purposelessness. (Any question about purpose is a religious question.)

Whoever we are and whatever we believe, we are all structured the same. We see our actions; more hidden are our thoughts and feelings. Beneath those are our imaginations and motivations—the apparent reasons for our thoughts, feelings, and actions. But deeper still is the knowledge of God and our response to him (fig. 13.2).

Figure 13.2. A View of the Heart.

Our hearts, as we have seen, are out of kilter. This is no surprise to you because your entire life feels out of kilter. But there is a specific way our hearts are misaligned. They were intended to be devoted to God, but they aren’t. Instead, they are devoted to a strange brew of God, ourselves and the objects of our affections, a.k.a., our idols.

Why this misplaced and compromised devotion?

We are proud.
It might not make any sense at first, especially when you feel so low, but our hearts are proud. Since ancient times, people have bowed down to idols in the appearance of humility and contrition. But their goal wasn’t to be mastered by the idol. People worship to
get
things. We choose idols in part because we believe that they will give us what we want. The god of drugs brings fearlessness; the god of sex promises pleasure and intimacy; the god of wealth holds out power and influence. We can feel miserable about ourselves because we want to be great, at least at
some
thing, and we are not feeling very great. Like the prophets of Baal, we are arrogant enough to believe that we can manipulate the idol—whether by cutting or some other form of works righteousness—so it will relent and give us what we want.

Does this fit your experience? We are talking about something that is universal.

Examine your imaginations and fantasies. Don’t they reveal that hint of self-exaltation? Even thoughts of suicide can have elements of pride. Suicide will stop pain, but it will also leave an imprint on the minds of others. Even lowly self-pity can quickly become a reason for us to think about ourselves. It can be a form of proud indulgence.

You may be depressed, but you are still a person, and people, by nature, have proud streaks throughout.

We crave autonomy.
Autonomy is closely linked to arrogance. They are both expressions of human pride, but autonomy suggests that we want to be
separate from
more than
over.
We want to establish the rules rather than submit to the lordship of the living God. This was the essence of Adam’s original sin. We want to interpret the world according to
our
system of thought. We want to establish our own parallel universe, separate from God’s.

One popular expression of autonomy is American deism. Deism is not a formal church or denomination, but it is arguably the most popular belief system in the United States. Deism acknowledges God, but it believes that he is far off, too preoccupied to be involved in daily affairs. Its mottoes are “God helps those who help themselves” and similar principles that avoid trust or faith as the primary human response to God. In Deism we can settle the frontier without anyone meddling in our business.

Can you see this in depression? Part of the depressive syndrome is that you are immensely loyal to your interpretation of yourself and your world. If God says you are forgiven in Christ, you create new rules that mandate contrition, penance, and self-loathing. If God says he loves you, you insist it is impossible. There it is: your system is higher than God’s.

The way out of autonomy begins with a simple prayer. “Lord, teach me. I want to think like you.” Just think what it would be like to be certain that the God of the universe loved you. That alone would probably change the contours of depression.

We want to indulge our desires.
But pride and autonomy are not all that’s wrong with our hearts. Both point to the fact that we are grasping, desiring creatures. We want something. We covet. We want
more
(Eph. 4:19). And we are jealous of those who have what we want.

“I want! I want more!”
More security, more love, more peace, more money, more respect, more freedom, more beauty, and so on. Think
about it for a moment. Does it seem that more of anything would change your depression? If so, you are most likely seeing the grasping, accumulating desires of the human heart.

The problem is that even if we
get
more, we never feel quite satisfied, so we want more still. Even God is not enough. Then, when more is not available, life becomes empty and holds no interest.

Many depressed people have been hurt and rejected by others. They feel as though basic relational needs have not been met, and they will be stuck in depression until they are. Rejection from parents, spouses, or friends has left a profound emptiness that feels like an emotional handicap. What does this have to do with the heart?

Consider first the example of Jesus. He is God, but he was truly human. If anything is clear from his life, he didn’t get love from people, he never prayed that he would know the love of other people, and he didn’t seem emotionally undone by rejection and misunderstanding. Rather, his deepest needs, as noted in his prayers, were for the glory of his Father to be revealed and for his spiritual children to be protected from the evil one and united in love (John 17).

The desire to be loved is natural. If you don’t have that desire, something is wrong. Yet there is something deeper still. This unmet desire does not quite go to the core of our being. We can go a step further and ask,
Why do I feel this need for love? What is it really saying?

The desire for love is good. The problem is that, left unchecked, it never stops growing. Keep in mind that our hearts keep repeating the chorus, “I want.” We want more love, and more again. It is here that you observe the spiritual roots.

There are times when we put our trust in a person (something created) and what we can get from that person
rather than
putting our trust in Christ and loving others. Once again, it comes down to spiritual allegiances. Like the ancient idolaters, we have said that God is not enough.

The feeling of emptiness is usually a sign that we have put our trust in something that can’t sustain us. It reminds us that we were created to trust in our heavenly Father and nothing else. We were created to enjoy the many things God gives without making them the center of our lives. When we confuse the two, our lives feel out of kilter. To feel better, we try again and search for love apart from God, but when we finally realize that it is elusive, we forsake the quest and quietly despair.

Keep probing. Life is ultimately about God.

When you get to God, don’t stop until he surprises you with his beauty and love, which shouldn’t take too long. After all, if you can find mixed allegiances, dual allegiances, spiritual unfaithfulness, or a wandering heart in your life, you are essentially guilty of spiritual adultery, and, contrary to your expectations, your God delights in your return (Luke 15:11–24).

As you consider your own heart more carefully, please keep two things in mind. First, don’t think that this means that your sin is causing your depression. It is true that you will find sin—that is an essential part of our walk with Jesus. In times of suffering, Scripture encourages us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles” (Heb. 12:1). You should be concerned if you
don’t
see sin because one of the ways the Holy Spirit loves us is by revealing sin. Since sin is what really corrupts life and everything good, we are blessed when we can see it and turn from it. But this doesn’t automatically mean that sin is the cause of your depression.

Second, keep Christ close on this part of the path. Keep Psalm 130 close. The heart of Scripture is that God has moved toward us and taken the initiative to forgive our sins. He doesn’t forgive because you are sad about your sin; he forgives because Jesus paid the penalty in full.

The curious path to true life is to grow in both the knowledge of God’s love and your own sin.

While I regarded God as a tyrant, I thought my sin a trifle, but when I knew him to be my Father, then I mourned that I could ever have kicked against him.
²