WEBINAR: THE BIBLE AND DEPRESSION & WHATEVER ELSE AILS US

 
Psalm 33:20–21 Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in Him.

While secular folks might present sound observations, by leaving out God their solution is left without its necessary foundation and will not work in the long run.

Thankfulness and Depression

Lauren Aaronson: “Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier…Just jot down things that make you thankful…Call it corny, but gratitude just may be the glue that holds society together.”
 
"Just do it?" Unable w/o God and His assurances? Psalm 73:20–28 When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you [God]. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

REDEEMING SUFFERING Romans 5:3–5 …we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Hebrews 12:1–2 …let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

NEED TO KNOW SUFFERING HAS A GOOD PURPOSE: 2 Corinthians 4:16–17 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,

EMBRACED FOR ETERNAL LOVE: Isaiah 43:20–21 …[ I ] give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise [thanksgiving].

EGOTISTICAL? Romans 4:20–21 [Abraham] grew strong in his faith as he gave glory [thanksgiving] to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

KNOWLEDGE-->THANKSGIVING: John 17:26 “I made You known to them, and I will continue to make You known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (Marriage!)


Hope In Suffering

Depressed people need hope more than anything else. They have been fighting a foe that is greater than they are, and they have despaired of their own efforts. Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed many fellow prisoners struggle and finally acquiesce to the verdict of the death camps. In The Journey: Our Quest for Faith and Meaning, Os Guiness quotes Frankl:

•    The prisoner who had lost his faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.  

WITHOUT FAITH IN THE FUTURE: “Rates of anxiety and depression among American college students have soared in the last decade…The number of students with suicidal thoughts has risen as well.” (Robin Wilson; The Chronicle of Higher Education; “An Epidemic of Anguish: Overwhelmed by Demand for Mental-Health Care, Colleges Face Conflicts in Choosing How to Respond;" Aug. 31, 2015)

Nearly 1 in 10 high school students admitted that they had tried to take their own life in the previous 12 months, according to a survey published by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, and 1 in 5 had seriously considered it. Suicide rates among adolescents had risen 53 percent between 2010 and 2020. (AARP.ORG/BULLETIN; Sept. 2022)

WHY? Proverbs 8:14 “A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?”  ?

•    SOLUTIONS: The Noonday Demon, coined by one reviewer as “the definitive book on depression,” Andrew Solomon—himself a long-time sufferer: “A sense of humor is the best indicator that you will recover; it is often the best indicator that people will love you. Sustain that and you have hope.
 
Solomon understood the difficulty of laughter amid depression:

•    Of course it can be hard to sustain a sense of humor during an experience that is really not so funny. It is urgently necessary to do so…Whatever time is eaten by a depression is gone forever. The minutes that are ticking by as you experience the illness are minutes that you will not know again. No matter how bad you feel you have to do everything you can to keep living, even if all you can do for the moment is breathe. Wait it out and occupy the time of waiting as fully as you can. That’s my big piece of advice to depressed people.

How can we laugh when we feel threatened? We need to first believe we’re safe and protected. (Solomon—Faith in anything (Spirit Guides?)

•    HEAVEN: Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

•    Romans 8:31–32 …If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

The late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, wrote about his journey from Zen Buddhism to Christianity. He had repeatedly observed that his Christian clients would improve, no matter how serious their psychiatric condition. He concluded that suffering serves a good purpose:

•    “The quickest way to change your attitude toward pain is to accept the fact that everything that happens to us has been designed for our spiritual growth…We cannot lose once we realize that everything that happens to us has been designed to teach us holiness…We are guaranteed winners!    

•    Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.


Authenticity, Self-Acceptance and Depression

We need to be authentic and at peace with our true self, but this is difficult. When we lack authenticity and transparency, we are in a state of disharmony and conflict. We obsess about maintaining an image, a lie:

•    Karen Wright: “Authenticity is correlated with many aspects of psychological well-being, including vitality, self-esteem, and coping skills. Acting in accordance with one’s core self—a trait called self-determination—is ranked by some experts as one of the three basic psychological needs.” (But 98%)
 
Wright’s suggestions for achieving authenticity: reading novels, meditating, cultivating solitude, and playing hard. She also maintains that we should “be willing to lose” and cites Thomas Moore’s rationale:

•    Feelings of inauthenticity are heightened by a lack of a philosophy that allows failure to be part of life. If you’re leading a full life, you are going to fail some every day. (Acceptance or suppression?)

Failure unavoidable! We need to regard it as a positive. If you believe that this life is all we have, then failure assumes monumental importance. Thus, because of our limited time, secularism places an even greater burden to succeed.

W/O ACCEPTANCE OF OUR BROKENNESS/FAILURES—MASKS: DANGERS OF SUCCESS: 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (Buddhism?)
 
W/O Authenticity and self-acceptance, darkness controls. CLINICAL EVIDENCE:  

•    Psychologist Shelley E. Taylor: “People are positively biased in their assessments of themselves and of their ability to control what goes on around them, as well as in their views of the future. The widespread existence of these biases and the ease with which they can be documented suggests that they are normal.” (Positive Illusions) (Denial, non-authenticity)
 
Mainstream secular counseling panders to the marketplace, to our insatiable appetite for ever more “positive” illusions, through building self-esteem (self-trust)—diametrically opposed to authenticity and self-acceptance, a refusal to accept the truth about ourselves.  

SELF-ACCEPTANCE: Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, director of Women Helping Women Ministries: “The counter-intuitive truth that the depressed person needs to hear isn’t “you’re really a wonderful person,” but rather, “you’re more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe”…Bathing our soul in the Gospel message will powerfully transform…It’s true that I’m more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, and that truth frees me from the delusion that I’ll ever be able to approve of myself; but I’m also more loved and welcomed than I ever dared hope, and that truth comforts and encourages me when my heart condemns me and my darling desires are all withheld. It assures me that although I struggle with accepting myself, the Holy King has declared me righteous.” (Self-acceptance vs. self-esteem:  Opposites)
 

Eudaimonia and Depression

LIVING IN ACCORDANCE WITH OUR MORAL CONVICTIONS: Karen Wright: “Eudaimonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values.” (Or “conscience”—Hitler, Stalin, Mao)
 
Altruism--Pragmatic assessment! Paul Kurtz—atheist, humanist, and author of the Humanist Manifesto II—affirms that pragmatism is the only possible justification for morality:

•    How are these principles [of equality, freedom, etc.] to be justified? They are not derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical status [beyond the material world]. They are rules offered to govern how we shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results. (Their god?)  (Anything goes if it provides results?)

Reject God, reject moral absolutes, benefits of Eudaimonia.
 
Instead: Isaiah 11:3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear.
The Ultimate in Eudaemonia: John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food [nourishment] is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
 
 
Meaning, Purpose and Depression

We are psychologically constituted to seek to understand our place in the world and to comprehend our purpose and meaning within it:

•    The  late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel: “It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?”  
 
We need to understand that we are more than just an accident, a mere product of nature and nurture. The maverick psychologist, James Hillman, concurs:

•    We dull our lives by the way we conceive them…By accepting the idea that I am the effect of…hereditary and social forces, I reduce myself to a result. The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim. I am living a plot written by my genetic code, ancestral heredity, traumatic occasions, parental unconsciousness, societal accidents.
 
If we fail to see ourselves as part of a higher narrative, there is a great danger of falling into depression. When we recognize that our lives have meaning, we can endure the trials and frustrations. Even the atheist and Christian-despiser, Frederick Nietzsche, wrote that, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
 
But from where does this “why,” or rationale, come? Not from secular materialism, which denies a Creator and His purpose. In this regard, writes:

Psychologist Arthur Deikman: “Human beings need meaning. Without it they suffer…Western Psychotherapy is hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical phenomena in a framework based on scientific materialism in which meaning is arbitrary and purpose non-existent.”
 
The atheist mathematician Bertrand Russell was confident that he could create a self-made reality and his own meaning.   Subsequently, he admitted:

•    I wrote with passion and force because I really thought I had a gospel. Now I am cynical about [my] gospel because it won’t stand the test of life. (Creating our own meaning?) (Imaging eating?)
 
Instead: 2 Corinthians 5:20–21 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

1 Peter 2:9–10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.


Guilt, Shame and Depression

Depression is often the result of our unresolved and crippling feelings of guilt, shame and inadequacy. John Bradshaw warns about the depressing effect of these feelings—especially shame—which he defines as…

•    The internalized feeling of being flawed and defective as a human being…shame, which should be a healthy signal of limits, becomes an overwhelming state of being, an identity if you will. Once toxically shamed, a person loses contact with his authentic self. What follows is a chronic mourning for the lost self.
 
Bradshaw then explains how shame—“the master emotion”—begins to tragically numb the rest of the emotions through denial, repression, and dissociation. Where did this life-controlling shame come from? According to Bradshaw, it is a product of not being loved unconditionally. If this is the problem, then the answer is a matter of providing unconditional love. One way this is achieved, according to Bradshaw, is through loving affirmations:

•    Repeated positive messages are emotional nutrients…Here are the loving words you can say to your inner infant:

o    “Welcome to the world, I’ve been waiting for you. I’m glad you are here. I’ve prepared a special place for you to live. I like you just the way you are. I will not leave you, no matter what...”
 
There are several problems with Bradshaw’s approach:  
Assumption that toxic shame only results from a lack of love.
That it is always a negative-->Self-Examination
We are moral beings needing to be reconciled to God
Positive Affirmations are costly! Addictive! (Mirror) vs. God’s affirmations: Ephesians 3:19 know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Not a make-believe love but a true love! (imaginary family)
Not self-forgiveness: 1 John 1:8–9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.


Moral Living, Blessing and Depression

Blessing: John 13:17 “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”  

John M. Gottman, professor of psychology and co-founder of The Gottman Institute “The typical conflict-resolution advice won’t help. Instead, you need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict between you—and learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.”
 
Gottman claims that a year after the average couple graduates from a standard course of conflict-resolution training, only 18% retain any benefit from it.

Marriage guru Harville Hendrix: “Feel more loving toward each other simply by engaging in more loving behaviors…The husbands and wives are to grant each other a certain number of these caring behaviors a day, no matter how they feel about each other.” (give to get?) (Humility)

 Ephesians 5:28 “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.”

1 Peter 3:7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Don’t but, firstly, to please God. If firstly for the benefits, virtue will not persist.

There are many other psychological needs—forgiveness, humility, contentment, accomplishment, validation, joy, beauty and more—that we could survey in order to demonstrate how our Lord and His wisdom best address those needs. In contrast, there are numerous counterfeits. Curiously, they provide some relief in the short-run, but as with all drugs, there are hidden costs.  
 
The wisdom of the Bible is uncanny. How is it that a collection of ancient books continues to nourish us in all the very specific ways we need? If the Bible didn’t do this, we might well question whether it came from a superior Intelligence. However, in many ways, it bears the fingerprints of a God who loves us so much that He wants to share His mind with us.

Isaiah 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.