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THE CALL TO WAR

Depression is like an unassailable fog that settles upon the harbor of the soul. It is a leach upon the fledgling emotions and a disease upon formerly vibrant desires. It is a thickly clouded midnight sky that chokes out distant starlight. It's a bandit that comes upon you and grabs hold of you like a barnacle on the underside of a merchant ship. And when you are a Christian, depression is about as welcome in your life as a fox would be at a hen convention.

As a pastor, I have seen the soul-paralyzing effects that depression can wrangle upon the heart of countless men and women. As a man, I have felt my mangled heart periodically strangled by the silent thief lurking in the melancholy shadows. From my earliest memories to this very week, depression and anxiety have been a feature of my life. Yet, I am not a victim, and neither are you.

For a few moments, I would like to sketch out a three-step guide found in 1 Peter 5:6-7 on how to slay the tyrant called depression. This blog will not discuss clinical depression, medication, therapy, or counseling. Instead, I aim to describe the spiritual warfare that has aided my heart and soul, and I pray it will comfort you.

THE TEXT

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

STEP 1: REJECT HUMAN PRIDE

Everything in this verse hinges upon killing pride because if depression were an engine, then pride would be its gasoline. It is the fuel that propels major depressive episodes into spiraling tailspins. Thus, if you want to sever the shoots of depression, you must first cut off the bitter roots of pride in both its mange forms.

The most apparent form of pride is self-love, which leads to an eventual credibility crisis. When humans become infatuated with themselves, the ego inflates beyond rational possibility. The propaganda and hype quickly outpace common sense, and soon the person will have to work increasingly harder to believe how incredible they know that they are not. This disparity between perception and reality can lead to various forms of depression and must be repented of.

And yet, the most damaging form of pride is not self-love; it is self-hatred. Instead of spending hours fantasizing about how incredible you are, this manifestation of pride leads its victims to recall how awful they are. And whether that self-loathing comes from destructive addictions, poor body image, failed relationships, or the sorrow from self-induced consequences, the effect of perpetual harmful self-consumption will give way to the same toxic narcissism as self-love.

Biblically speaking, the human heart will become septic if the self is all you feed it. We may hate various aspects of who we are. We may have abiding bitterness over how things have turned out or based on how we have been treated. We may ache over feelings of abandonment. We may shake our heads at how stupid we were that one time (or many times). And we may carry a duffle bag full of self-blame over this or that scenario. But, feeding yourself more of you is like adopting a diet of pure lard and hoping to get healthy.

The only way to kill your depression is to stop making everything about you. Sure, you probably have failed a million times. You are also the common denominator in all of your ruined circumstances. And yet, you do not belong to you. If you are a Christian, Christ has purchased your life and hidden it in Him so that He is where your hope comes from.

Instead of punishing yourself with more self-hatred, give yourself permission to stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on Him. When the chatterbox inside of you screams, "why do people treat me this way" you cry back: "Look how kind my savior has treated me!". When the accusations begin to gurgle, "you are one pathetic loser," from the tar pits of depression, you resist the urge to grovel alone in destructive pity and speak to your flesh, saying: "Look at who Christ has made me. I am no loser; I am a son. I am a prince in heaven's armies. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. I am the bruised reed He will not break and the smoking flax He will not quench. I am a citizen and a sojourner en route to the New Jerusalem. And though my flesh and my heart may oft deceive me, my hope is in Him, and He can never fail me!

This practice of taking the focus off of you and putting it on to Christ is the most excellent medicine your soul could ever take. Take hold of your mind and set it towards Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourself to be consumed by you; instead, be consumed with Him.

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time

STEP 2: REST IN GOD'S PROVIDENCE

Hear me out here; you deserve nothing but hell. You are a vicious rebel who spat in the face of Almighty God, who is now overflowing with a perfect rage, ready at once to consume you in your transgressions. You were not owed the comfort of a mother's breast as a helpless babe. And, the oxygen you now steal away in your borrowed developed lungs is not the fair wages for your rebellion.

Everything you have, even the sorrows and the pain, is far better than what you were owed. If God executed perfect fairness upon you, you would have never escaped the womb since you were conceived in iniquity. You would never take your first breath. You would not giggle at the silly faces a father makes. You would never breathe the cold mountain air, taste the marbled goodness of a medium rare ribeye, or have your heart filled with love for your very own child. If fairness were your taskmaster, your infant back would be christened in the fires of eternal hell. When you understand that, then even the most painful and bitter griefs you have been allowed to taste may rightly appear as the tender and affectionate mercies they are.

You have received unfathomable grace if He did not strike you down in your sin. And, if you are in Christ, God has gone beyond the realm of comprehension to claim you - His enemy - to become His own, a member of His family, cleansed and being made fit for His celestial Kingdom. This truth is where the noxious power of depression can be aptly thwarted.

When you understand that God owes you nothing, you will begin to see everything, even your miseries, as regal blessings. Instead of focusing on your expectations, experiences, pain, or grievances, you will begin to look for His redemption. You will start to see how all of your afflictions are working for you, an eternal weight of glory. You will notice how God is working all of these things out for your good, maturity, and joy. When you comprehend the providence of God, His sovereignty, depression will no longer have any room left to afflict you because you know that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ and that this Christ is using your crosses to bring you into resounding glory at the appointed time.

Rejoice in His sovereignty. Reject the lies of the enemy. Refuse to sit in depression.

7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

STEP 3: REMEMBER GOD'S COMPASSIONATE PROVISION

After you have slain the monster of self-absorption and recognized that you are infinitely more blessed in Christ than you ever dare dream, now is the time to cast the lingering crumbs of anxiety and depression onto Him. Cast upon Him your fears, your insecurities, your obesity, your tendencies towards self-medication, and everything else that afflicts you. Cast your anger, toss your doubts, throw your sadness, and heave your wayward cares on Him because He cares for you.

Jesus demonstrated that great love for us in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us. The one who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. This one who became sin on the cross and was also buried in a borrowed tomb did not stay bound in that well-guarded crypt but rose in the power of God, as victor over the grave, author and perfecter of our faith, and the one who triumphed over all our cares, concerns, and fears.

When the Scripture commands us to cast our cares upon Jesus, it tells us to give them to the only one who can handle them. You can't. I can't. But He already has when He wrestled our broken emotions and misplaced affections down to the depths of Sheol and rose triumphantly in victory over all! When we cast our sinful attitudes, desires, thoughts, fears, worries, and griefs on Him, we say to the Lord, not my will, but Yours be done. When we abandon our wanton tendencies to punish ourselves, we will accept that He was already punished for us. We may finally step into His freedom when we let go of our shame!

His will is not for us to live in the agony of depression but to live in the splendor of His affections.

CONCLUSION

Battling depression, for some, will be an all-out war that will take intentional and constant effort. But, as we said in the beginning, this fight can be won if you will fight in the Biblical way. Step 1, you will need to kill that old man inside of you who wants you to spend all of your time focusing on yourself. Repent of that and turn all of your affections on Him. Step 2, You will also need to take up the new man, with the new Holy Spirit wrought affections, so that you will not focus on your situation or circumstances but will remember how blessed you are in Jesus Christ. And Step 3, you will need to learn the timely habit of casting every negative emotion, thought, feeling, or desire on Him. The plain and simple truth is that you are not sufficient to carry such things. That is not how you were made. So take those aberrant cares and cast them onto the only one who truly loves you, and watch your depression melt away.

I hope this helps, and I hope that in these three simple (not easy) steps, you will find the freedom and hope that is worth fighting for and only comes from Him.