As a Postmillennialist of the B.B. Warfield degree, optimism is my proverbial jam. I look to the future with great expectation and hope. I expect that the entire world will one day be filled with the glory of God (Has 2:14); that all the nations will obey King Jesus (Genesis 49:10), who rules with an iron scepter (Rev 12:5), whose government will know no end (Is 9:7), that all peoples will come under the tidal wave of Christian baptism baptism (Mat 28:19) and will experience His propitiating work of salvation before this old world gives way unto the new (1 John 2:2).
And yet, with all of that glass half full kind of faith, depression afflicts me. For most of my life, sadness has been the muted ache clings to me and won’t let go. Like arthritis on a rainy day. Like the dull pain of a rotten tooth. There are days when I awake in sadness, work through sadness, and fall asleep with little to no comfort or relief. Most of the time it is not overwhelming. It isn’t more than I can bear. But it’s just there. It is the steady malaise of melancholy that colors my disposition, tints my perception of relationships, and distorts my outlook on life.
It is an emotion I have wrestled with earnestly. It is an emotion I have often sought to mortify It is an emotion many have lovingly rebuked me for having, accusing me of a lack of faith and offering simple platitudes to “fix me.” In fact, for most of my life, I have felt an acute sense of guilt and shame for a cloud that often will not lift.
This, too, has caused me sadness. A sadness on top of sadness that leaves me no better off than I was before. In those moments, I often ask myself many questions. But, frankly speaking, I am usually left with few good answers. I wonder things like:
What have I done wrong?
Does God not hear my plea?
What sin do I need to repent of that’s causing this?
Will I ever be free?
These questions have gnawed at me, like a flesh eating leech under the murky waters of a North Carolina river. I have felt the draining effect of their sucking, but have often been too deep underwater to see the situation clearly enough to shake it off. In the past, one particular murkiness, was a misunderstanding of what it means to live as a Christian. Part of my problem was that I was given a very wrong view of the faith, of worship, of the church, and of Christianity in general.
As a young adult, I attended churches where plastic smiles plastered on top of insincere hellos seemed cringy but also normal. Instagram-filtered friendships were the standard; everyone looked more put together than me. No one ever seemed to struggle like I did. Why? Because pastor said that was a lack of faith. So the girl on stage swung her hips and danced like it was the best day of her life. The greeter handed out toothy grins at strangers. People told me they were so glad to see me just before mispronouncing my name or confusing me with someone else.
Amid this faux-love-fest I was left on the outside looking in. If they were the picture of faithfulness, then perhaps God was rewarding them with all that flamboyant joy. And if I was the epitome of failure, I must be getting what I deserve. This was the skewed vision of the world I had been given.
Now, to be fair, no one said most of this out loud. But, also to be fair they did not have to. It was like carbon monoxide existing imperceptibly in the air. We were all breathing it in. We all were broken within. And we all thought we were the only ones.
While the glitz and glam of this happy, shallow American church life distracted me for a years, I remember the day when it occured to me: “I have never heard a single sermon on Lamentations or Ecclesiastes.” I also could not recall a single worship set that ended with a dirge. It never seemed okay to honestly share how I felt without rebuke. I truly cannot remember anyone being real with me or giving me that grace in return.
But as I turned to the Bible, I realized so much is actually said about joy through pain, hope in depression, and vulnerability in the struggle. I began to see that David rode the same emotional roller coaster I was feeling, Jeremiah screamed out the word of anguish that were echoing in my mind, and Jesus wept the tears my eyes had been keeping in. I saw, for the first time in my life, that the Biblical message was the opposite of what I had experienced in Western Christianity. The Biblical vision was not trite at all or platitudinous in any way. It was beautiful.
I now see how joy, real joy, is not bound up in my emotions or my sensate perceptions, but instead transcends these things with a committed hope in God. I have learned that mourning is not defeat. Pain is not weakness. Lamenting is not necessarily sinful. And sadness can be strength, so long as it is tethered to the promises of God.
I have learned that joy must not be easy, for if it were, it would not be joy. It is a fight worth fighting for. It is a fight to reposition our minds on the promises of God in the midst of the decay of life.
I have learned that hope can be – and must be – found in the darkest pains. That joy must be unearthed with many scoops of the shovel.
For those struggling, I would encourage you: don’t run from your sadness. Instead, run to God with it. Don’t waste your pain. God will use it – light and momentary as it is – to produce maturity and great joy within you. With that, let the psalms be your anthems. Let your prayers be your buttressing. Let your laments touch the epicenters of your suffering, so that you will weep, so that you will unleash the bottled emotions stored up within you. But in your lamenting, lean on God, for He knows that you are dust and He loves you anyway. Surround yourself with believers who will listen without trying to fix you or dismiss you. And keep opening your Bible, clinging to the Bible, even when it feels dry keep going. Remember, sometimes the most needed medicine leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, while healing the body. In the same way, get yourself into the Word of God so that you will know His promises, believe His promises, and trust in His promises. They not only never fail, but they are the balm your soul needs when it is suffering.
When I look to Christ, I see the ultimate example of joy through pain. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and yet, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross (Hebrews 12:2). His suffering wasn’t meaningless—it was redemptive. And because of Him, my pain is not meaningless either. Even in my sadness, and in yours, we are more than conquerors, because we have been united to Him with a glue that cannot lose its potency.
This is why Jeremiah could say – in the midst of a national collapse, a smoldering temple that was burned to a crisp by the Babylonians, and a people being marched hundreds of miles on foot to become slaves in a foreign land – that:
“The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the LORD…
For the Lord will not reject forever,
For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness…
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?
Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Offer complaint in view of his sins?
Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the LORD.”
– Lamentations 3:22-26, 31-32, 38-40
I have learned that true joy can be found in depression, sadness, anxiety, and pain. You are not broken because you are hurting. Real brokenness is sitting down in your hurt without stopping to look to look for your healer.
