Psalm 13

For the choir director: A psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
² How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?³ Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
⁴ Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord
because he is good to me.

Observation:

Read this.  Really read this.  Read it from your own perspective.  Read it as you were crying out to God and these were your own words.  Now tell me that the writer of these words was not depressed; did not feel absolute despair; did not feel as if God was taking a trip to Hawaii and left him to deal with his problems on his own.  Tell me that because he felt this way, he lacked faith.  David, the author of this outcry, was a man after God’s own heart.  He was a man of faith, yet he suffered greatly from depression.   As a matter of fact, if you really study the Bible, you will see that most great people of faith suffered from depression or anxiety at some point in their lives.  So why then, do so many “Christian” people and organization perpetrate the lie that it is because of LACK of faith?  I myself have been told that God has healed me and then when I continue to have symptoms, it is because I lack faith or because there is unresolved sin in my life.  That’s BULLSHIT, and a very destructive lie directly from the enemy.  Did David lack faith when he said, “BUT I trust in your unfailing love.  I will rejoice [despite the fact that I feel horrible and I can't feel Your presence anywhere in this universe] because you have rescued me.”  He goes so far as to “sing to the Lord” in the midst of his pain and anguish.  How can it be a LACK of faith to believe God is good, even when you don’t FEEL Him?  David hadn’t felt the goodness of God in his life “forever”!

Application:

This verse has been very close to me for many years.  It has been a comfort to know that I am not alone.  I have cried these words and felt this kind of despair for so long, it really does feel like “forever”.  I have cried out to God these same words (stronger, even) and not heard of felt a thing.

I recently went to a conference on depression called, “Breakthrough: Journey out of Depression”.  I have struggled with depression and anxiety since adolescence and have read many books by Christian and secular authors.  This was the best I have ever seen of combining the Physical and Spiritual together.  I have always believed we are 100% spiritual beings AND 100% physical beings and there is no way to separate the two.   Luckily, I am on the mend and I feel better than I have felt for many years, but I continue to study and learn.  I am continuing to arm myself with tools that will help me if/when I struggle again.  Gary H. Lovejoy, Ph.D. and Gregory M. Knopf, M.D., who put on the conference, have the best tool out there.  I strongly recommend their book, “Light on the Fringe” to anyone who has depression, who knows someone with it, or who works with people who have it.  It is the one tool I have that makes sense from a medical view as well as a spiritual view.

Please visit their website www.depressionoutreach.com It has some wonderful tools, their book, and a great video on how the brain works.  There are many psychologists and doctors who believe the way they do.  I have been seeing two of them for the past 5 years, and I am very grateful to them.  It was a pleasant surprise to see the clinic they work at listed in the appendix of the study guide!

Prayer:

Father, thank-you so much for bringing hope into our lives.  Thank-you for giving us tools to live a life of righteousness and faith, even when we don’t feel it.  Thank-you for people like Drs. Lovejoy and Knopf, who listen to You and share what You have taught them.  I pray that people who suffer from depression will find Your light and Your joy as I have, and not guilt that will drive them deeper into despair.  Thank-You for loving us so much.

In my previous post, I stated that FAITH is being able to grab a hold of what you can’t feel, but you know is there.  To add to that, FAITH is continuing to live your life even though there are unanswered questions.  The book of Job was the first book of the Bible written.  Why?  It is a book filled with unanswered questions.  It is a frustrating book, because in my mind, Job asks some very good questions.  Most of them boil down to “Why, Lord, are you allowing me to suffer?”  That is really the universal question.  If God is so good, why is there still pain?  Why do I have to live with depression?  Why do I have days that it is a struggle to get out of bed?  Why do some people that drink and smoke their whole life have no health problems when my patient who loves You very much has to suffer through cancer?  Why do young children die?  Why is there starvation in the world?  WHY, WHY, Why?  Add you own list of why’s.  We all have them.  Of all people, Job definitely had a right to ask why.  He was an upright man who even God said of him, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.” (Job 1:8) Job suffered as much as any person, except Jesus, has ever suffered.  I think he had a right to ask why.  Did God answer his question?  Did God tell him why he was suffering?  No, He did not.  When I read through Job the first time and came to the heading, “God Answers Job“, I became excited.  Finally, answers to the universal question!  God is going to tell me why we suffer!  But to my great disappointment, God answered with a series of questions of His own.  “Where were you when I created the earth? Did you command the morning to appear?  Can you make it rain?  Can you count the clouds?  Can you make lightning appear? Did you create the creatures of the earth?”  These are rhetorical questions in which God says “I AM WHO I AM and that is all you need to know.”   What was Job’s response?  “I am nothing, how could I ever find the answers? I have said too much already.  I have nothing more to say.” (Job 40:4-5) Job was left with unanswered question to why he was suffering.  But, he was left with the knowledge of God, and that was all he needed.

Christian Reger, a Dachau Survivor, had this to say about his suffering: “Nietzhe said a man can undergo torture if he knows the why of his life, but I, here at Dachau, learned something far greater.  I learned to know the Who of my life.  He was enough to sustain me then, and he is enough to sustain me still.”

Paul was given a “thorn in his flesh” to remind him that it is not about WHY, but about WHO.   “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.  Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need.  My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.” (2 Cor 12:6-9) I don’t believe we are told what Paul’s thorn was because we are all given a “thorn” to keep us from becoming proud and to remind us that God is all we need.

So again: to me FAITH is living my life even though it appears to be defined by my pain; continuing on with my responsibilities when I feel I have been let down by God;  waking up each morining and knowing God is with me even though I can’t feel Him; trusting in Him even though it appears hopeless; praying to Him even though I’ve prayed the same thing a million times before.  FAITH is LIVING THROUGH THE PAIN EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE UNASWERED QUESTIONS.

 Somehow, Paul and Silas praised God.  I don’t believe that God anesthetized their pain.  I believe they suffered through the pain and praised God until the pain became bearable.  That is the challenge we face: living the pain and suffering until it becomes bearable.  When praise is the LAST thing that comes naturally to us and we choose to worship Him anyway, we’ve just had the privilege of offering a genuine sacrifice of praise. 

The pain in my life over the past few years has been depression and anxiety.  God has taught me to praise Him even though that is the very last thing I’ve wanted to do.  I remember sitting on my front porch and telling God that I didn’t believe He could exist because there is no way He could be a loving God and allow me so much despair and anguish.  But, I reached beyond what I felt and did what I knew.  I thanked God for the day even when I couldn’t get out of bed to see it.  I thanked Him for my job even though the thought of going there caused every symptom of a heart attack.  I thanked Him for my children, even though I feared them.  I thanked Him for my husband who was about the only thing I really was thankful for.  I sang to God.  I danced before God.  I  smiled at the world.  In my peer review from work were things like “she is always so happy and brings peace to the department” “she is level headed and does not become overly excited at stressful situations” “she helps us to feel relaxed and happy”.  These all came during my deepest period of anxiety and depression!  When my husband had to drive me to work because I was afraid to drive, when I would spend my lunch hour hidden in an unused room crying, when each time I entered a patient’s room my heart would feel as if it were bursting through my chest.  This is not faking peace or happiness, this is grabbing a hold of what you can’t feel, but knowis there.  It is the evidence of things unseen.  It is FAITH that God is there and that He loves you.  The change in my life was not instantaneous.  God did not see a child struggling and drop a flash of joy down into my life.  Slowly I crawled out of my pit of hell and I can now FEEL God again.  But when I begin to notice the signs of depression or dispair or when my heart starts to pound and I feel like running away, I stop and immediately thank God for His goodness.  I KNOW that I will survive.  I may again decend into that deep dark pit of dispair, but even though I may not feel God’s presence, I will praise Him and know He is there.  I will continue to offer my sacrifice of praise to Him.