Depression, Anxiety, and How God Turns Darkness Into Joy
There are moments when life feels like it’s caving in on you. The anxiety won’t lift. The depression won't let go. Every breath feels forced. Every smile, fake. Every prayer, unanswered. And in those seasons, your flesh whispers: “Where is your God now?” But the Scriptures tell us exactly where He is. He is in the dark. Not as a passive spectator, but as a sovereign Craftsman—chiseling glory out of grief, hope out of hurt, joy out of the very jaws of hell.
Isaiah 53:10 declares a scandalous truth: “It pleased the Lord to crush Him.” Pause there. Let the weight of that fall upon you. It pleased the Father to crush the Son—not because He delights in pain, but because through that crushing came your healing. The hammer of wrath did not fall at random—it was aimed at redemption. And Hebrews 12:2 peels back another veil of glory: “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.” The cross was not merely survived—it was embraced. Not for the pleasure of pain, but for the prize of purchased people. Not for the agony itself, but for the outcome—your eternal joy with Him.
To human eyes, the crucifixion was horror incarnate. A grotesque display of brutality on a hill called Golgotha—the place of the skull. Nails tearing through flesh. A crown plaited with thorns. A mob drunk with mockery. The sun itself turned away in silence. It was the worst moment in human history. Until heaven spoke.
From heaven’s throne, that dark moment blazed with unquenchable joy. The Father was pleased—not in cruelty, but in the completion of covenant. The Son was joyful—not in suffering, but in saving. And the Spirit was not grieving, but rejoicing—breathing divine life into a dying world.
When Jesus breathed His last, the word in Greek is pneuma—a word that means both breath and Spirit. That final exhale was not a sigh of defeat. It was a wind of triumph. A breath that shattered hearts of stone. That final breath of Jesus rushed right into the chest of a hardened Roman soldier—bloodstained, battle-worn, pagan to the core—and blew the life of the Spirit into his lungs. That man, of all men present, was the one whose lips trembled with awe: “Truly, this was the Son of God” (Matthew 27:54).
Don’t miss this: At the exact moment when the world screamed “God has lost,” heaven thundered “This is how I gain my victory!” The crucifixion wasn’t a tragedy—it was a Trinitarian triumph. A holy celebration of perfect obedience, perfect wrath, and perfect love. Joy did not wait for the third day. Joy detonated in the darkness of the first.
And that means this: your darkness is not the end of your story either. The same God who turned death into glory will not waste your suffering and pain either. Your loneliness is not empty. Your sorrow is not void. Your tears are not unnoticed. They are the soil where resurrection joy takes root—not plastic, shallow, band-aid joy, but radiant, iron-wrought, blood-bought joy.
If the darkest hour in human history became the stage for God’s most dazzling work, then your dark hours are not fit for you to fear. On the contrary, they are the places where you should watch for life to come forth from death and light to burst forth from the darkness! Instead of wallowing, get good at watching! Watch what He does. Watch how He moves. Watch how He brings worship out of weeping and hallelujahs out of heartbreaks.
Dear brother or sister, if you’re anxious—keep going. If you’re depressed—keep walking. If you’re buried beneath a mountain of pain, wounds, scars, and hurts—remember this: God is not absent. He is not even just present. He is powerful in your pain. He is present in your anguish. And in the tomb of your despair, He is already working resurrection joy.
The same God who authored joy at Calvary is authoring joy in you—even now. Remember, these light and momentary afflictions are not even worthy of comparing to the joy that He is working. That means ultimately in eternity. But it also means temporarily as his child, knowing that He is working out everything, even the darkness, for our good.
So, embrace the dark. Find joy in your sadness and hallelujah’s in your hardest trials. Count it all joy. Cast your anxieties upon Him. Pray in the midst of it. Praise Him all the way through it. Because the God who brought joy from the cross will bring joy to you. The cross proves it. The empty tomb guarantees it.
