Overcoming depression as a Christian: where the depression actually lives

Let’s now consider how the gospel might apply to something like depression.

Perhaps your psychiatrist has determined that you have a chemical imbalance in the brain. Or perhaps there are circumstantial reasons that you attribute to your condition. Whatever the reason, it is imperative you realize—if you are a believer—that the depression is not in your heart/spirit but in your body of flesh. In other words, you must make the distinction that it is not in you but in your body. How can you be so sure? Because the fruit of the Spirit is joy, and you are one with him! Can the Spirit of God be depressed (or anxious, unfocused, addicted, restless, traumatized, etc.)? Most certainly not! So, as a matter of fact, neither are you (in spirit). Remember, Christ is your new life and identity. Therefore, you cannot at the same time identify with depression while also identifying with Christ, in whom there is no depression. To do so is deception, or double-mindedness.

Does this mean I have to act like I’m not experiencing depression when I really am?

No. It is merely to locate and observe the source of your depression (i.e., the flesh) so that you may be empowered to disown it and discover the true you, filled with Christ, beneath the surface. You may feel it, sure, but you must not identify with it as if it is a product or part of you. For it is a lie.

When feeling depressed, it is most natural to think to yourself, “I am depressed.” But this is the lie that Satan loves for you to believe. The truth is that your flesh is producing the depression, and it is waging war against your spirit. You do not need more joy and contentment. You already have it by the Spirit of God within you. Now, by faith, you must lean on him to discover what is inside of you. If the fruit of the Spirit is joy, then think of yourself as a “joy tree,” destined to bear that fruit if you grow. Joy is in your nature; it is the new you, along with all the other fruits of the Spirit.

This is very different than trying to make yourself feel joyful or pretending that you are. Faith is not striving to become something you are not. It is striving to believe that you already are what God says you are in spirit. Moreover, faith is not pretending or mere positive thinking; it is a conviction of truth you cannot see (see Hebrews 11:1).

Additionally, remember that faith in God entails talking with God, not just trying to believe things yourself. Ask God to help you identify whatever lies are afflicting you. Share how you’re feeling with him. Wrestle with him until you get some clarity. Believing truth doesn’t negate our need to process things with the Lord.

Do you feel as if your life, or certain aspects of it, are meaningless? Is there too much weight and responsibility on your shoulders to handle? Are there people you have not forgiven, hurts that have not healed, dreams you have failed to attain, regrets you have been unable to let go of? Whatever it is, diligently seek what God says about it, and then prayerfully exercise your faith in his word by giving thanks. Do this with each and every lie that comes to the surface, and do it until it is gone. As you grow stronger in faith, living increasingly according to the Spirit, your joy will come from heaven, and nothing will be able to take it from you. And to whatever extent you have not experienced it yet, that is okay. Do not grow weary. Do not feel condemned. Continue trusting in the Lord and enjoying him.

Are you suggesting that I should be able to get over it quite easily?

I would never suggest that. There is no promise that your spiritual growth will come easily, without trial and suffering. And how quickly you “get over” it does not change the truth one bit about who you are or how you are called to renew your mind at this moment. Part of what it means to “live not according to the flesh” is that we stop letting what we see and experience in the flesh influence what we believe is true. We are invited to think on a new plane, where the spiritual/unseen reality trumps the earthly/seen reality. Start doing this, and just trust God with the result, however long it takes. But also, be very cautious not to buy into the lie that it probably will take a long time. God did not teach you that.

There is one thing that defines you now—Christ in you. Relentlessly thank God that he has delivered you from relying on your flesh and your feelings for happiness. You are learning to experience joy through him. Rejoice that he has given you joy inexpressible (see 1 Peter 1:9), and renounce every lie that says otherwise. You can even rejoice as you suffer through this because it gives you the opportunity to grow stronger (see Romans 5:3-5). Then, have great hope in the fact that as you become more grounded in the truth, the Spirit within you will begin to give life to your mortal flesh, putting to death the depression within the body so that it no longer is able to wage war against you at all (see Romans 8:10-13). There is no corruption in the Vine; therefore, corruption will not remain in its abiding branches.

Can’t I just pray that God would remove my depression from my body/brain?

Yes. And perhaps he would; perhaps he would not. Either way, this leaves you waiting and powerless until God decides to work a miracle. More seriously, it leaves you relying on the flesh to overcome depression instead of relying on the Spirit to overcome the flesh. So the better option, I believe, is to take hold of the grace you have been given, striving to access the unseen reality in which the Bible says you live, where there is not even such a thing as depression.

As I write this chapter, I have a friend named Matt, who sprained his ankle very badly. The night that it happened last week, he came to my house, and we laid our hands on him to pray for miraculous healing. When he came over again last night, he was not yet healed, and his leg was in a boot that the doctor gave him. Another brother walked in and, upon seeing his injury for the first time, immediately prayed for him to be healed, just like we did the week before. So, you see, regarding bodily injuries or ailments (which we could simply regard as something else that is out of God’s order), we regularly pray and trust in God for miraculous healing. But at the same time, we recognize that if it does not happen, God has still ordained a natural process of healing, which we understand quite well. Matt simply needs to take care not to injure his ankle further. It helps if he sleeps and eats well. And then, at some point, he will need to begin using his ankle again to regain its strength and mobility. If he does these things, we have great confidence that his ankle will return to its fully functional state. This kind of healing is something that we generally believe God has ordained in the order of his creation.

Now, let us view the brain in the same way—as an appendage to the body that may be healed miraculously by God’s choosing but is certain to be healed naturally by God’s ordained process. We do not hesitate to pray for the miracle, for the instantaneous change. But in the case that we do not receive it, we must readily embrace the ordained natural process of learning to submit our thoughts to God, letting him dictate the way we think. As we do so, the brain changes. New neural pathways are formed, and they are formed in the order that God intended them to be, the result of which is radical healing/transformation—a new kind of human, manifesting the glory of God through a body that is submitted to the Spirit.

He is our Counselor (see Isaiah 9:6). He is our Physician (see Luke 4:23 and Mark 2:17). And if we let him treat us, he will heal us—not always by merely removing the depression and leaving us just as immature and vulnerable as before, but by maturing us out of our depression and making us impervious to the same kind of deception.

We might also think of it like a small child who is thrown into the sea. The child does not know how to swim, so she always drowns in the water. There are two solutions here for the child. The first is to snatch her out of the water and never let her return. The second is to teach her to swim, and swim strong, so that the water has no effect on her, no matter how hard the sea is raging. I ask you, which solution is ideal? The first is easier, but the second is profoundly better.

In this analogy, the child is you, and the sea is the world, your flesh, your depression, etc. You did not choose to be in this situation; you were just thrown into it. It is not your fault. But it is within your God-given ability, by your new spiritual nature, to become strong enough to overcome these waters and to swim with relative ease, if you will only let Christ teach you. Could God pluck you out of the water? Of course, he could. But then you would lose this opportunity to grow up into Christ further.

Let’s be clear. God can do whatever he wants. Sometimes, he just calms the storm or plucks us right out of the water, and that’s his prerogative to do so. But far more often, I find that he intends to use my present weakness in the flesh to teach me to find strength in the Spirit. And my prayers for another way are met with his answer that there is no other way. As God told Paul, who begged him to remove the thorn from his flesh, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Therefore, Paul concluded, “when I am weak [in the flesh], then I am strong [in the Spirit]” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

But I feel like there’s something else wrong with me, something I’m ashamed to admit. There is a dark side of me that doesn’t even want to be full of joy, some sick and twisted reason that I actually prefer depression and fear freedom.

Notice how this is self-degrading as you label yourself dark, sick, and twisted. For this reason, you must know that it is a lie. No matter how strongly you feel a given desire is your own, if it is opposed to the desires of the Spirit (i.e., the will of God), then it is from your flesh, not from you. Do not be deceived. Stop identifying with it. Look to the Lord and discover his desires within you.

Is it wrong to seek any other sort of intervention for this, like therapy or medicine?

I cannot say that it is wrong, nor that it is right, for this will vary based on the person, the situation, the season, etc. As I said before, trust in God, not methods. The moment we begin setting general rules and principles to live by is the moment we cease to rely on God. It is also the moment that our ministry becomes something other than the ministry of Christ and the gospel. We start depending on seminars and courses and university degrees to learn the methods, and then we never grow up in the Spirit, who would make us far more equipped. We say things like, “This method helped me; you should try it,” instead of, “I leaned on God, and he led me to try this thing . . .” The former leads someone to the method; the latter leads someone to God, who alone can lead them where they need to go. What type of friend, minister, brother, sister, or shepherd are you going to be?

Whatever you do, then, do it in faith, open to learning, trusting that God desires you to be well by relying on him each step of the way. And whatever thing he uses to help you, never forget that it was God who did it, so that your testimony will inspire others to trust in God the same.

Now, if you understand what I have said about depression, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to see how it applies to other things, as well—emotional trauma, addiction, ADHD, anxiety, sleeplessness, etc. If it does not describe Jesus, then it no longer describes you. To identify with the corruption of the flesh, as if it defines who you are, is to undermine the power of the Cross and the Resurrection by which you have been united with Christ. You have put off the flesh and been born again to new life (see Colossians 2:11-12) with God’s character and incorruptible nature. This life may be hidden (see Colossians 3:3), but it is nonetheless real. Take hold of it by faith, and never look back.