How Should a Christian Deal with Depression?

How can Christians deal with depression? Today, Michael Reeves looks to the lives of Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon to help us understand how the Lord uses suffering to shape us into Christ’s likeness.

NATHAN W. BINGHAM: Joining us this week on the Ask Ligonier podcast is Dr. Michael Reeves. He serves as president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in the United Kingdom. Dr. Reeves, welcome to the Ask Ligonier podcast. How should a Christian deal with depression?

MICHAEL REEVES: The first thing anyone struggling with depression needs to know is that to struggle with depression does not make you a second-class Christian. Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon would be two examples of heroes of the faith who struggled with depression themselves. And Charles Spurgeon actually preached quite extensively about his own depression; it even led him close to taking his own life, so severely did he struggle. And he wrote about this and actually talked about how the Lord used his depression to enable him. He was quite a strong, big personality, and the fact that he wrestled with depression gave him a tenderness with those who struggle. And he said that’s often how it is with our struggles, that the Lord uses our very struggles to make us more Christlike. So, don’t view yourself as a second-class Christian if you struggle with depression.

You need to know that there are a number of different potential causes of depression, and it’s worth being aware of them. There are physical causes, there are spiritual causes, and there are mental causes. And Charles Spurgeon actually would be an example of seeing all of them can interrelate. So, he would find that physically, just the pain in his body could depress his mind. He said some people just are of a depressive constitution and tendency; they just are inclined to be melancholy. For himself, he found going to the south of France and retreating from the murk and rain of London in the winter was something of a physical remedy that helped him. And so, it’s worth being aware that, actually, it might be, in dealing with depression, there are a few different things that need to be dealt with, and it might mean your body needs rest. It might mean that your depression is such that you need some medication to enable you to deal with some of the symptoms because they’re simply too severe to live with. But when you are in that situation, normally, rest, medication, physical remedies are only palliatives—won’t deal with the deeper root cause.

Now, whatever the root cause is, in dealing with depression, the Christian needs to see that when I struggle, when I’m feeling very low, that does not mean that God has abandoned me. The Father adopts Christians as His children. He’s no longer standing against them as their judge. He stands with them as Father. And He will discipline His children, but that is a sign of the fact that He loves us. So, when you struggle as a Christian—when you suffer, when you’re going through depression—it is actually a mark of God’s fatherly care for you, that He cares so much for you that He wants you to be strengthened by the experience of difficulty—maybe, like Spurgeon, tenderized by it—because 1 Peter 1, particularly verse 7, God uses suffering as a purifying fire for our faith. So, don’t believe God’s abandoned you when you’re struggling with depression. Know instead the Lord is using this, and this is, in fact, a sign of His fatherly care for you that He wants you to grow.

And I would give one particular Scripture verse to take away with when you are in the midst of depression, and it’s Proverbs 3:5:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.

When you’re in a place of depression, it’s very easy to say: “I know I’m supposed to believe that God is all powerful and all kind and is looking after me, but it just doesn’t feel true right now. It feels like God has forgotten me, God doesn’t care about me, and He’s moved on.” And in that time, that’s when you need to say, “I will trust in the Lord with all my heart, and I will not lean on my own understanding.” Don’t walk by sight; sight can look gloomy and sad. Walk by faith and you will see, as the great hymnwriter William Cowper, who struggled with depression, wrote in his wonderful hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” he said:

Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

God truly is good and kind in all His ways. It’s simply that His ways are far higher than ours, and so they’re mysterious to us. But He can be trusted, even in that darkest valley of depression.