It starts with a disappointment, a betrayal, the loss of a job, or isolation. At first it is a low grade sadness that envelops us and builds day by day. It continues until we are prisoners of our own thoughts.
One day we realize that our energy is fading, nearly gone. We put one foot in front of the other, hoping to walk out of the darkness, but instead, the night grows darker until we see no light and have no hope. The day comes when I can barely get out of bed. Then I don’t.
This is the path of depression. It is devastating and it is real. It is not garden variety sadness over one thing or event. It is an obsession that life is not getting better and is destined never to be better.
By God’s grace, there is hope. And the answer begins with the question the psalmist asks himself in his greatest despair. “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why disquieted within me?” It’s in Psalm 42, and worship seems far off, distant, and even impossible.
Rather than heed the voices in his head (that is, himself), he talks to them! But he answers them as well, for as dark as things seem, he knows there is a promise-keeping God who loves desperate sinners. “Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
Beginning in Eden, Satan’s lie is that God has left us alone and does not want the best for us. Jesus proves otherwise. He has come as the Savior of Sinners, and receives all who come to Him. If you are in despair, please reach out. There is help because there is hope. There is hope because there is Jesus. Matthew 11:29-30
“Father, we pray for all who are, for now, in darkness, that Jesus, the Light of the World, will illumine their path
and bring them your hope. Amen.”