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Almost all of us at some point of our lives experience some form of depression, whether it’s feeling the blues for months, or not getting over a death of a loved one for years, a breakup, or life is not how “we” imagine, we all experience something that brings us down emotionally. Depression is something that affects your mood, mental state, and some people can experience physical symptoms as well. Some symptoms of depression can be feeling sad all the time, or not feeling your normal self, hopeless feeling like your life doesn’t matter, having a heavy heart, discouraged, frustrated all the time, not having any interest in what is going on around you or in your life, not wanting to eat or eating too much to suppress your emotions, trouble sleeping and concentrating, even spiritually deprive.
Depression is not something you should ignore if you believe you are experiencing depression you should seek medical attention immediately. So you may be thinking, “Well Milly, if I need to go to the doctors how is God going to help me?” Well, first understand that God is the one who gives doctors the knowledge and wisdom to be able to treat you. Doctors may be smart, but they are not that smart, after all, God created the universe in six days. I have meant no one on earth that could that! He formed man from dust and breathe life into him. We cannot ignore that and leave him out of the equation, without God there is no life, Deuteronomy 32:39; Psalm 6:2; *2 Chronicles 16:12-13; Job 5:18; Isaiah 53:5; Mark 5:25-29; Jeremiah 33:6; Matthew 8:16-17; Genesis 2:7; Genesis 1.
Looking into Spiritual Matters
When we are talking about God, we are also talking about spiritual matters. Therefore, I will write about what is going on spiritually not just the physical. We must identify that depression is a spirit. How you may ask? Let’s look at 1 Samuel 16:14-23 (NIV) in the Bible, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better. ” o Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.” One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.” Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul. David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.” Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” That spirit was a depressed spirit that would mess with Saul’s emotions. Now if you were paying attention your next question would be, but God put that spirit there, why would he do that? Well, you have to go back and read Saul’s story from the beginning to the end. Saul did not obey God all the time, in fact he did some pretty shady things in God’s sight that did not please God. He disobeyed God to the point where God rejected him as a king of Israel, 1 Samuel 15. To save time, go back and also read how David defeated Goliath, in 1 Samuel 17. David was succeeding in everything he did and that made Saul even more upset, with jealousy. So in between him disobeying God, his hatred for David, Saul had a lot going on in his mind and heart anyway so it was easy for God to allow that evil spirit of depression to come upon him. Are you making the connection here? There are many reasons why you may be depressed and a spirit is one of them.
Secondly, you may be depress depending what you spend your time looking at, listening to, places you are visiting, people you are hanging with, or even following on social media, what’s in your heart and who you are “competing” with as we saw above with Saul and David. Maybe someone life is looking really good online and that is making you feel discouraged and depress. Maybe you are around people who are always talking about bad news and how the world is going to end, and that has put a fear in you that you won’t be able to accomplish all your dreams, making you depressed. We must understand we have the ability to control what we keep our eyes focus on, our ears listening to and what I mouth is repeating. Certain outside circumstances can creep into our lives and make us feel sad and blue. That is not the will of God for our lives, and we must identify what causes us to be depressed and snap that out of us with God’s help.
How is God going to help with my depression?
In this walk with God, we must understand that in order for him to do anything in our lives we must submit to his will for our lives. The quicker we submit to him and put the fire extinguisher on our pride, healing can emerge. Saul was a way in too “his emotions”, with angry, jealousy, envy, hatred, to get healing, he allowed his emotions to destroy him completely. God doesn’t want that for our lives but if you don’t learn to pick your battles, you will learn the hard way. The great news is that God is ready to help! If you ready to submit and humble yourself here’s how God will help:
We are going to get into Prayer about this first. Now many people like to have pity parties but when you are being attacked, spiritually we don’t have time for that. It’s time to be equipped with your weapons for battle. We are in a spiritual war. Ephesians 6:11-18 (NKJV) says, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.” This sounds like a battle to me. What are we going to pray about? We going to pray and let it all out, tell God exactly how you are feeling, if you are in pain, say it. If you are experiencing mental anguish, say it. For example, your prayer may look like this: Father, I come to you concerning my depression. I am feeling really down. I am in a lot of pain and I can’t take it anymore. Please humble me to receive your word in my life. You said in Proverbs 3:5-6, if I trust you with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding, submit to you, you will make my path straight. I submit God with all my heart, mind and spirit. Show me your ways, and teach me to yield to you and not this world and everything that troubles my mind, heart, and spirit. This is just an example, your prayer will be more personal to you of course but we must submit ourselves to prayer.
Next, we are going to Find Scriptures concerning our depression to meditate on. We will find in the bible that mediating and taking action on the word of God will lead us to good success. Joshua 1:8 (NKJV) says “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” And let’s look at Psalm 1:2 (NKJV) as well, it says “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law, he meditates day and night.” Got it? Okay, let’s move on. Now we are looking for scriptures such as (this is just a few, there’s plenty more in the bible):
Philippians 4:6-7 Psalm 34:17-18
Psalm 3:3 Psalm 143:7-8
Proverbs 12:25 Matthew 11:28
1 Peter 5:7 Romans 12:2
Isaiah 41:10 Isaiah 26:3
Now it’s time to meditate, write down all the scriptures you will be using on a notebook, Example: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” Isaiah 26:3. In the morning you meditate, during lunch, you meditate, before bed, you meditate, you meditate until you’re no longer looking at your notepad, the scriptures becomes one in you and you’re living it.
Now that we are “living it”, we need to continue to take Action and keep ourselves away from what is making us depressed. If you are looking or following others online and it’s depressing you, get off online. I know that seems simple, but many people find it hard to “get off” online. They think they are missing something, but what are you missing? If you didn’t have the internet, trust me you’ll find something to do, like read a book, called the bible. Schedule days to be completely offline if it’s really serious remove the apps off your phone. If you have to be online because of business, stay focus on business only, if you find yourself venturing off to other people’s pages, sites, take a break and get off the computer. Get focus. If you are around people that is “depressing” start to get more productive with your life so you won’t be stuck with the wrong people always around you. Take a class, get a hobby, travel, volunteer, get busy! Whatever you need to do, take action! Live! God put you here to Live!
Once you are making the adjustments and things are looking up, continue in the process. Continue praying; continue seeking God and drawing closer to him, after all, it was his help that got you “feeling yourself” again. Thank God for what he has done. God is good and there is nothing he can’t repair in our lives, Be Humble, Learn to Submit and Draw Closer to God.
~Blessings from Milly J
“Often depression of spirit and great misery of soul are removed as soon as we quit our idols and bow ourselves in obedience before the living God.” ~ Charles Spurgeon
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