Depression and finding Joy.

Finding God’s love and protection if you willingly seek it out in the midst of depression.

•     Depression and finding God’s love.
•     Depression knows no strangers.
•     Don’t try to fight it by yourself.
•     Seek God and his protection; ask for help through him.

Life. It’s tough and hard out there living and trying to find the purpose and will God has for you in a society where dragging people down is the norm. It is a fight out there to even be noticed let alone actually be promoted and known, this grows into loneliness with the side dish of depression that no one wants to be stuck in but it feels like we can’t escape it. As it is depression awareness month, I want to talk about how to handle it and some biblical truths about it and how to bring it God for his protection and healing. Although depression isn’t directly mentioned as “depression”, many people still went through depression. Many people throughout the bible suffered depression from Moses to King David; Moses was so and that in Number 11:15 – after bringing the Israelites out of Egypt – he tells The Lord to go ahead and to take him and spare him of this misery.

‘I can’t carry all these people by myself! The load is far too heavy! If this is how you intend to treat me, just go ahead and kill me. Do me a favor and spare me this misery!” ‘

Numbers 11:14-15

https://my.bible.com/bible/116/NUM.11.14-15

BUT – and this is a big but – God told him to then gather 70 people and meet him at the tabernacle and he will split the load up upon them as well; God told Moses to seek help from others that he gave him to carry the burden and elevate some of it from him.

‘I will come down and talk to you there. I will take some of the Spirit that is upon you, and I will put the Spirit upon them also. They will bear the burden of the people along with you, so you will not have to carry it alone. ‘

Numbers 11:17

https://my.bible.com/bible/116/NUM.11.17

Part of God’s love for you through your depression season is blessing you with people who you can talk too as they also have gone through this before. God blesses us with communities that have gone through similar scenarios because depression knows no strangers; depression can and will hit everyone. It’s not if, it’s when it will hit someone and what we can do is to be prepared for when it hits hard so we can seek help and hit it harder. As we go through this hard time in life, we are meant to do it with others supporting and helping us; God never intended for us to be alone in this life, that’s why he gave Adam Eve. The Lord even said that:

‘Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” ‘

Genesis 2:18

https://my.bible.com/bible/116/GEN.2.18

We are meant to be with communities to support us through and to seek the joy The Lord has made for us at the end of all of this. The last thing The Lord wants us to do is to battle this alone and keep falling down a slippery and uncontrollable slope that will end us up somewhere we didn’t want to be at. Seek people and wise counsel about what is going on and ask God to provide you the said counsel so you may get better in time; scripture says:

Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Proverbs 11:14

https://www.bible.com/bible/59/PRO.11.14.ESV

We are to seek help from God and each other; do not fight it alone and do not try to work your way out of it and trying to ignore the pain that it is causing upon yourself. Ask God in prayer, seek the help he tells you to seek, and go get that help so you can continue working for him and return to yourself.

In conclusion, when dealing with depression, do not fight it alone. Seek help from professionals and yes, even medication if it gets to that point. You may ask “is getting medication not having faith?” And that is a valid question, the reply that I read somewhere that someone once asked themselves was:

    Who do you think put the thought into the chemists’ brains when they came up with something that could help?

    Grant from Miracle a day.

Ask God for help and he will provide the help, we just have to go for it and do what he tells us to do in order to receive that help we desperately need. So, in this fight:

•     Don’t fight it alone
•     Seek people that God sends you.
•     lean onto him for rest
•     and rest when he tells you to stop working so he can heal you