Depression’s Vaccine; Remembering!

Oh, how easily we forget. In times past, we have all worked through struggles, problems, and trials. Then we enter a new season. With new seasons we face new problems. During those difficult times we often experience anxiety, depression, and despair. We forget that God has brought us through, because we don’t take time to remember.

Most of the time we live in depression because of a sense of hopelessness. It feels like things can’t, and won’t, get better. If there is guilt and shame that seems impossible to fix, we stumble into a spirit of defeatism. Our energy gets zapped and we only have a negative outlook on our future. When the only solutions are impossible and unattainable a cloud of depression ensues.

Why? Why does this moment in time, whether it’s a committed sin, loss of job, marriage problems, difficult children, and health problems spiral into an emotional disease called depression.

Look with me for a moment at Psalm 42.

¹ As a deer longs for streams of water,
so I long for You, God.
² I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I come and appear before God?
³ My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long people say to me,
“Where is your God?”
⁴ I remember this as I pour out my heart:
how I walked with many,
leading the festive procession to the house of God,
with joyful and thankful shouts.

⁵ Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.
⁶ I am deeply depressed;
therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan
and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;
all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.
⁸ The Lord will send His faithful love by day;
His song will be with me in the night—
a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I will say to God, my rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy’s oppression?”
¹⁰ My adversaries taunt me,
as if crushing my bones,
while all day long they say to me,
“Where is your God?”
¹¹ Why am I so depressed?
Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,
my Savior and my God.

Here is David three times saying, “I am so depressed.” The circumstances in his life are not going so well. He is feeling like God is far from him. He starts by saying that he longs for God like a deer wanting water. Water is essential to life. It is the first thing a deer looks for when he wakes from sleep. It heads to water. David is saying to God I know you are essential for life, but I am depressed.

Then David remembers! Three times David encourages himself with hope from the past. He recounts the many times God showed up and did amazing things. He is drawing from the experiences he has of a mighty God. A God who performs the impossible, a God who works miracles.

He is a God who makes the impossible a reality. He is a God who changes circumstances, a God who heals and delivers, a God who restores, a God who makes new, and a God who provides.

When we remember who God is and what he has done our hope is restored. The Israelites needed to get to the other side of the Red Sea and God does the impossible and divides the sea with dry land to cross. (Exodus 14) Daniel needed protection when thrown into a lions’ den and God sent an angle to shut the lions’ mouths. (Daniel 6) A widow needed money to pay her debts and God used Elisha to perform a miracle of endless oil to sell and pay her bills. (2 Kings 4) A woman was bleeding for 12 years and no one, including doctors, could help her, but Jesus heals her instantly. (Luke 8:43-44)

My point here is that nothing is beyond God’s hand. We have hope in the Lord! Nothing we are going though is impossible for God. He has done so much for his children. He has done so much for you. You just need to remember! Do what David did and look back and declare what God has done. Encourage yourself in the Lord like David did and proclaim that you know where your hope comes from.

The easiest way to miss something is not to look for it. The easiest way to find something is to keep your eyes open for it. Stop and look for all the times when God showed up and did the impossible. Begin to stir up hope in your mind and heart. The Bible says, “hope deferred make the heart sick.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Hope is the cure for depression. When you remember, you are injecting yourself with a vaccine of hope. Hope brings you out of depression because, if it happened before it can happen again.

If you are struggling with depression today I encourage you to get out a journal and write. Write down all the times God has shown up to meet a financial need. Make a list of healing you or those you love have received. Describe the many times things happened for you that were impossible without the hand of God at work. Start reporting any incident or activity that took place because God showed up.

Start remembering. Start building hope. Start believing the report of the Lord. Don’t listen to the lies of the Devil. Stop listening to those who don’t know or believe God’s power. Reject anything that causes you to doubt God. Hope in the Lord.