It’s unrealistic and inhuman to think otherwise. Yes, a Christian, just like any other person, can and will experience times of depression.
Most Christians won’t admit they have, or are suffering from depression because of the stigma attached to it: Any Christian who does anything but slap a silly smile across their face and doesn’t include “Praise the Lord!” in every other sentence, must be weak in their faith.
It’s easy to think it’s your fault when your spouse is depressed. But depression is personal and particularly for a Christian, it’s an issue between them and God, rather than between them and other people. Christians get depressed when our perspective becomes more horizontal rather than vertical (Ps 73; 2 Cor 4:16-18).
When depression strikes, the first thing we ought to do is look to the Lord (Ps 62:5-8; 121:1-2) rather than to self or others to blame. Second, we must trust God to lift us from our miry pit instead of believing we have any strength to do it ourselves.
Anything done in a temporal manner will only garner temporal results. But if we do things by the will and command of our eternal Father, then the results are in His good and mighty hands and not in our poor and feeble ones. Just remembering that truth, will bring comfort and relief.
Will God magically zap us into a happy state or give us some obscure sign or vision in a coffee stain? No. God the Almighty doesn’t need to entertain us with our imaginations.
God desires for us to know and understand Him, therefore, He will usually speak to us in ways that we, finite and simple human beings can comprehend—using ordinary things like eating and drinking, and getting up and moving on, even in the midst of depression; just like He instructed the great prophet Elijah to do when he was depressed (1 Kings 19:5, 15-16).
“As for You, O LORD, You will not restrain Your mercy from me; Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness will ever preserve me! For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me...But may all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; may those who love Your salvation say continually, ‘Great is the LORD!’ As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!” ~Psalm 40:11-12, 16-17
Stonebriar Community Church, in Frisco, Texas offers a multitude of resources to help encourage you. A few of the ministries are: Marriage Ministry, Pastoral Guidance, Reach Up Reach Out, Divorce Care and Cancer Encouragement.
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