"Hope In Depression, a Mental Health Challenge" by Verlynn Yoder

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Welcome this morning to Strength to Strength. So today we have a topic that's called Hope in Depression: a Mental Health Challenge. So this is being brought to us from Verlyn Göder. Verlyn is from Minnesota, and he will be sharing with us in just a moment.

So before that, I think we'll begin with a word of prayer, and then I'll turn it over to Verlyn to introduce himself as we go through the—as he's sharing. If you have any questions, feel free to write those down and keep those for later. And we'll be coming to some question and answer then towards the end.

All right, so let's begin here with a word of prayer.

Father, we thank you this morning for your blessings to us. We thank you that in you we can find answers. And as we face challenges such as what we're going to be talking about this morning with depression, something many people struggle with and something that sometimes it seems answers are few, we look to you. And so we pray this morning that you will work for Verlyn's life and give him words to say and inspiration and thoughts that will be helpful and ultimately that your kingdom can be strengthened and your people established. Pray that you would bless each one here on the call today, bless our lives, and help us to be a blessing to those around us as well.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, Brother Verlyn, the time is yours.

All right. Well, this is a privilege and a blessing to be with all of you this morning. And maybe the first thing Glenn asked me if I do some introduction here. First thing to say is my natural pronunciation of my name is Verlyn. And not to blame Glenn at all, but I usually get mixed up with Verlyns, and I know quite a few dear brothers who are Verlyns.

But my parents named me Verlyn, Verlyn Yoder.

I live in Central Minnesota. I'm a farmer. Raise corn and soybeans out here and do some shop work. I have a lovely wife, Laurel, and we have six children. My oldest daughter is married, just got married this past summer. Another son is out and doing voluntary service in Virginia, and four others are still at home with us.

My home church here is Believers Fellowship, Grove City, Minnesota, where I am ordained and asked to fulfill that responsibility here.

All right, the subject that I've been asked to speak on here is Hope in Depression. And I can only guess why you may have chosen to listen to this presentation.

Perhaps you know of someone who is struggling with depression and you're looking for answers. Or perhaps you yourself have struggled with depression and can identify.

Or perhaps you're currently feeling something and wondering what it is. And maybe you're depressed and you're looking for answers. Or maybe you're simply a learner and a student and would like to expand the opportunities available to you. Well, all of these describe me.

I'm in conversation with people who struggle with depression, and I've gone through a severe bout of depression myself. And I continue to navigate through life with a personality than temperament that is prone to depression.

And I'm also a learner and a student and seeking to expand my understanding of the way that God has made me and has made others.

It's now seven years since I'm on the other side of my severe clinical depression.

It is 35 years since I lost my only brother to what appeared to be a self-inflicted death at the age of 15.

And so it's because of both of these traumatic events and parts of my story that I am burdened about the subject. And I seek to understand and find answers. I can truly say that I live life today with more color and wholeness than I did before my severe depression.

I found answers, though not all of them, that have been very helpful. I know more about my personality than I did before. I know more about my thinking patterns than I did before. And I live with more purpose and more meaning than I did before.

And so I'm here to say that there is something purposeful to be learned from depression, and that in itself is meaningful and helpful in overcoming depression.

I'd like to begin this talk with a question: Can a genuine, victorious Christian be depressed?

Now, I assume that I'm largely speaking to a Christian audience.

Now, aren't Christians supposed to be the most joyous people on earth?

And if a Christian is living in victory, the assumption would be that's not depression.

Didn't Jesus say that hitherto? "Have ye asked nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full." And John wrote, "And these things write me unto you that your joy may be full."

Now, I'm not making light of these words of Scripture. I believe them and claim them. Joy and depression are not emotions that we typically mix.

We tend to think of either one or the other.

When I was in my darkest days of depression, Scripture actually became condemning to me. I could only read two books of the Bible and not feel condemned: Psalms and Job. And when I would read verses like and have this verse quoted to me, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me," that condemned me and frustrated me. Since I couldn't get out of my depression and I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me, or a Christian should be able to, I must not be one.

And that made my condition even worse.

So how do we understand a Christian and depression?

Well, there's an assumption that I've had ever since I was able to comprehend my atmosphere as a child. And that assumption is happiness, my happiness, is ultimate.

And whatever doesn't make me feel happy is a bad thing. If I'm not happy, then I'm lacking. And happiness is normal.

I have lived under the understanding that I can have all that I want, and that will make me happy. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

So my evaluation would be that suffering is not happiness. Suffering is want.

So suffering is to be avoided to make me happy.

I have this little secret vow that says, "I will not suffer."

Now, is this assumption one that is biblical? Does the Bible back this assumption? Is the Christian life always filled with positive emotion?

Is the happy feeling what the Bible calls as ultimate? Now, you would be able to pick out verses that would imply this, such as Psalm 144, verse 15: "Happy is the people," that is such a case. "Yea, happy is the people whose God is the Lord."

And so I'm sure you could pick out many others. The Health, Wealth, and Prosperity Gospel has plenty of those.

But on the other hand, Jesus himself said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

Now, I don't believe that the Bible as a whole would imply then that Christians should be sad and melancholy people. No, I believe, as I'll point out later, the Bible is a very positive book, very positive in its nature.

But I don't believe that it leaves us with the assumption that happiness is ultimate.

God's people, you and I, are real people living in a real world. And as we live in this real world, we are constantly evaluating our world and the circumstances of our surroundings.

And our emotions are a reflection of those observations.

And when we evaluate, what do we see? We determine whether or not this is either positive or negative.

And then we feel those emotions, either positive or negative. And when we evaluate what we see and observe as negative and detrimental, we actually feel negative. And the more perceptive our personality is, the more intensely we feel these emotions.

I say that because our personalities are different, and I can appreciate those differences. But there are those of us who are just by nature perceptive.

Now, that can be a problem. It doesn't need to be a problem.

And so we refer to this kind of personality as one who feels things deeply.

And that would characterize my personality.

And so here, Jesus uses those words, and they can take on new meaning when we hear him say, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

That mourning was, I would understand, to mean an admission of sorrow. And that mourning can then be an admission, can be an avenue of comfort and security.

Now, this depth of emotions can be a snare, and I'll get to that later.

But take this evaluation for an example from the Bible, as Nehemiah. Now, he was coming before King Artaxerxes and Nehemiah chapter 2. "And when wine was before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now, I had never been sad in his presence before.

Therefore, the king said to me, 'Why is your face sad since you are not sick?' This is nothing but sorrow of heart. And so I became dreadfully afraid and said to the king, 'May the king live forever. Why should my face not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste and the gates burned with fire?'" Nehemiah is saying, "King, what should I be happy?

I'm sad. Shouldn't I be sad?" So Nehemiah is taking an honest evaluation of the news, and he feels a negative emotion.

Some well-intentioned person could have said to Nehemiah, "Well, just trust the Lord.

You're not trusting the Lord. You just need to trust the Lord. You're not trusting well enough."

So for Nehemiah to not have been sad, what I hear him saying is that would be denial. Nehemiah was not that kind of a person. He was honest.

Or take Jesus in the garden as he evaluated his circumstances and what he was facing.

Matthew 26, "And he took with him Peter and two of the sons of Zebedee, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. And he said to them, 'My soul is exceeding sorrowful. Even if they stay here and watch with me.' And he went to the little father and fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'O my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.'" Here's Jesus evaluating the cup of suffering and the separation from his father and his death.

And he felt exceeding sorrow.

Negative emotions like depression are simply observations of the heart that are accurate. The things of this world are not as they are supposed to be.

They're broken. Many of the things in this world are broken.

Romans 8:22, "For we know the whole creation groans and labors and birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body."

We groan. And feeling depressed is part of that groaning.

Now, to me, this is freeing for me in my personality, the way I evaluate my world, and that it's accurate to respond to a depressing situation of this world with this kind of emotion. To me, it's honest, an honest part of reality.

While many would view depression as a wrong response of the Christian.

And so the depressed Christian is told, "You are loved of God, and he has a wonderful plan for your life. All you need to do is realize this. The joy of the Lord is your strength. And there's a peace that passes all understanding.

Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

So these are verses and clichés that are thrown at depressed Christians.

And while they are true, they're being misapplied because they are the either/or.

They make it appear that either you are trusting or you're depressed.

Either you're loved of God or you're depressed. Either you're joyful or you're depressed or you're at peace or you're depressed.

And love, joy, and peace, they are real things. But we have a tendency to oversimplify the Christian experience.

We tend to think that to make it either this or make it that. And this way of thinking is less messy.

But I don't think it's reality. I think there's a bigger and a better answer because we don't tend to be either total joy or total depressed. Because if we are totally depressed, total depression is complete hopelessness. And complete hopelessness is why suicide is so attractive.

Depression, I'm here to say, is not sin.

Now, I hasten to say, though, that we can sin while we're depressed. In fact, depression, severe depression, causes our sinful tendencies to accelerate.

In severe depression, there's more anger. There's more sexual temptation and likely gratification. There's more substance abuse. There's more tension. There's more irritability.

The severely depressed don't want to be this way. And we're looking for a way out and can't find it. We're looking for life. We're looking for water, for breath.

But the joy of this is that Jesus did not sin when he was extremely sorrowful and when he was depressed in the garden. He said, "Not my will, but thine be done."

He's saying this rather than, "Get me out of these negative emotions. I want your will to be done." To me, that's comforting. There is a way.

Here's how I'd like to understand this: love, joy, and peace are realities that should streak through the negative emotions like depression.

It is possible to experience both. James 1:2, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, when you experience those negative emotions as you evaluate the circumstances of your life. Count it all joy." Joy does not then replace depression. It renews it. Joy allows us to realize that there is meaning and purpose in my suffering.

This is going somewhere. God's love does not replace depression. It comforts us in it. Peace does not change the circumstances. It keeps us. My grandfather's favorite verse that he quoted in his halting way after he had a stroke, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusted in thee."

Some psychologists ask the question, "Why is it that some people go through intense trauma and never recover while others come out okay or even better?" And what they are discovering is that those who improve have learned how to think positively about the meaning of their suffering.

They don't deny their suffering. Rather, they learn how to think well and positively. And this was exemplified in the Holocaust and those Holocaust survivors.

And this is exactly what the Bible teaches.

1 Peter 1:6, beginning there, "In this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you are grieved (depressed) by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tested by fire, may be found to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen you love, though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory."

When meaning is attached to suffering, we now know it's going somewhere. We're going to learn something. And there's some outcome out of this that is going to be helpful, purposeful.

And this has to be clung to when you're in the midst of it. Hope is life. Hope is life-giving. And so this is what I would call learning to see opportunity rather than obstacle. Learning to see opportunity rather than obstacle. So rather than focusing on the evaluation of the situation as depressing in its entirety, we begin to view what is broken and to see a developing story.

I think that's exactly what stories are. You have the presentation of a dilemma, a climax, and a resolve. I have yet, in my brief history, to find a situation, a circumstance that I face where I cannot use this process of thinking.

I've been through trials.

So seven years ago, I took my wife and six children, my wife and six children, to Asia to serve for a year with a ministry. And during the first five to six weeks, I became so totally overwhelmed with the responsibility, the new culture, the lack of rest, my reputation, and just a hairball of pressure. It was all more than I could process. And fear and anxiety took over. That year that I had hoped would be filled with the most pleasant and rewarding experiences turned out to be exactly the opposite for me. That year turned into darkness.

And I wanted no memories of it. It started with waking up early, 2:00, 3:00. I couldn't go back to sleep. I felt like I was failing. And then a failure, lots of guilt, and feeling that I was the perfect setup for this. I lost total confidence in who I was. I lost my ability to dream and to make goals. I couldn't treasure anymore.

And I couldn't enjoy the things that I'd previously enjoyed. I became extremely indecisive because the decisions I made didn't matter anyhow, didn't want any memories of it. Lost my appetite for food, and I couldn't enjoy eating. I simply existed.

I could not live. These were intense times. I came to the place where I wished I could simply black out. The mental pain was so consuming.

I had with me the Christian Counselor's Medical Desk reference. And one day, I read in there the description of that modern psychology used to diagnose depression. Now, a person must have at least five of the following for two weeks and must include the first two.

And I read through these: depressed mood most of the time, loss of interest or pleasure in most activities most of the time, significant change in appetite or weight, too much or too little sleep, marked intense or decreased activity every day, daily fatigue or loss of energy, daily feeling worthless and guilty, difficulty thinking and making decisions every day, repeating thoughts of ending life, no recent death of a loved one. And when I read that list, I wanted to throw that book across the room and say, "That's not me."

But I knew it was.

Finally, after a year of returning home, I began a process of recovery.

I was so full of anxiety that I couldn't hold my hands still.

I say that to say I would have never imagined that any good could come out of that year, but turn obstacle into opportunity, learn to rejoice that there could actually be a story, and it's true.

That year has now become a part of my story. And out of that story, I speak.

That year has now has meaning for me. And I never would have dreamed that that black, dark valley of an experience would ever have meaning.

And I'm surprised today at who can identify with me as I talk about this story. They seem to come out of the woodwork. And I have begun, and I don't talk very much about, or these people actually have not talked very much about their experience. They need someone to talk to.

And so I've been able to, as I talk and learn from others, been able to learn helpful ways of handling my negative emotions of depression that I spoke of here earlier that are just simply an evaluation of life.

And I still have the tendency to feel depressed. But now I have the tools to use. And I can see a wider hope in front of me. I have hope in this life because otherwise, the loss of that hope, why get out of bed in the morning? And I really struggled in my dark days to get out of bed in the morning. What did I have to get out for?

I have a hope now that I can accomplish some projects throughout my day. And I realized that something today might break down and that my hope could be blocked. So rather than taking an evaluation and saying, "Forget it," I need to stop and refocus, admit what is broke. And that's admit the depressed feelings. The Bible, by the way, uses other words for depression.

Most of our translations don't even have the word depression in it. But it uses words like downcast, brokenhearted, troubled, miserable, despairing, mourning. I'm going to give a few of them. And so when my hopes are disappointed, dashed, and my evaluation is that this is broken, I feel a negative emotion. I have to, in a sense, grieve if necessary. And then I recover with a new strategy. I simply have to redirect my energy again. And this is the normal cadence of life. We experience a loss.

We grieve. We rest. We recover and go on with life.

But the problem happens when these negative depressed feelings take over and they characterize the entirety of our experience. And now depression has become what some would call clinical. And this person can no longer function. These extended cycles of depressive emotion have a direct impact on our mental health. And these negative thoughts can then change brain chemistry. And this is shown in brain scans where they show the activity of the brain has been damaged.

How I think affects how I feel.

How I think affects how I feel. And I find this to be so true that every time that I have a thought that is good and happy, hopeful, thoughtful, or pleasant, my brain actually releases chemicals that make me feel good.

It isn't exactly what the Bible says. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. But a broken spirit triath the bones. On the other side, when I have negative thoughts, mad, sad, hopeless, or angry, my body releases chemicals that actually make me feel bad. And so is it any wonder that the scripture tells us, "Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ." How important. I was of the persuasion for many years that when I have negative thoughts, I need to let them process. And these negative, disrupting, disturbing thoughts, eventually, they will go away.

And they did eventually. But I believe today they took a toll on my brain. And I spent days not feeling well. I've learned, and I'm learning, that I need to question my thoughts, bring them into captivity, and say thoughts like, "I'm a failure." Well, is that true? Is that true? I may feel that way. But is that true that I'm a total failure? What is true is that I may have failed to do what is best. But that doesn't mean that I'm a failure. It's kind of the all-or-nothing thinking.

And some psychologists will call this global thinking. It's like a young lady has a breakup with her boyfriend. And she says, "Ah, man, they're all like that." That's global thinking. They all are nothing. I simply cannot allow my thoughts to have free rein.

And I've learned that my thoughts can be very destructive if I allow my negative evaluations to characterize my entire experience. They all are nothing. Now, while my evaluation that I have failed is true and disappointing, it's possible that I can focus too much on my failure. My grandfather described it to me this way. And back when I was a young teenager, he said, "Verlin, you take a penny and you hold that reality of the penny right in front of your eyeball. What do you see?" He said, "Well, I see a penny.

Take that penny and hold it far away at arm's length. And now what do you see?" "Well, I see a penny. But I see everything else. I have a wider view." Very wise, grandpa.

Well, I'm the kind of person who does a lot of evaluating. And I am, by nature, introspective. And so I evaluate myself. You may have heard what Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Well, I think that it's also true that the overexamined life can be overly depressing.

So there's a danger in overexamination. Too much focus. The penny pulled up in front of my eyeballs. So can a victorious Christian be depressed? Yes.

To be depressed might be one that is seeing things rightly in a broken world. And depression is not simply an indication that one is seeing things entirely wrongly.

We have to be aware of the possibility that our negative thoughts might not be evaluation but actually imagination. Because imagination, as grandpa used to put it, is the biggest nation. I can imagine things that go beyond evaluation.

I can imagine what people might be thinking of me because of my failure.

And how much of that do I know is true?

So in our evaluation of our broken and disappointing world, the Bible has this to say. So finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.

The Apostle Paul knew the possibility of being consumed with the negative. And so he had come to this mature place where he said, "We have this treasure in our earth and vessels that the excellency of the power of God may be of God and not of us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair." And how many of us who do all this evaluating don't get perplexed? They say, "Not in despair. We are persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be manifest in our body."

Negative thoughts can be a reflection of reality, but they should not be allowed to define us.

If you know of someone who is struggling, if it's you or you know of someone who's consumed with depression, you are in good company.

Some are stalked with depression their entire lives.

And these need to learn to manage depression.

And it's a possibility because it is possible, as I like to illustrate, to lead a healthy life in spite of a depressive tendency.

We read in Hebrews 11 of those heroes of faith. And all these, these heroes of faith, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.

And chapter 12 begins, "Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and ascend to us so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

The run of patience with the depressive tendency takes just that, the perseverance of patience. Now, so here are a number of individuals who understood what we are talking about from the Bible. David, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul?" Here's the evaluation. "Having sorrow in my heart daily, how long will my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and hear me. O my God, enlighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say, 'I have prevailed against him.' Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in your mercy. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dwelt bountifully with me." So do you see the flow? The sorrow and the trouble have not gone away. But streaking through is this verbal acknowledgment of trust, rejoicing, and singing.

And sometimes we need to pull very hard on the rope to the joy bells and get them to ring. My grandfather's favorite book was a book by Charles Naylor, The Secret of the Singing Heart. And this is a new reprinted copy. The original one that I hope to possess someday is printed in the 1930s.

Charles Naylor was an evangelist who was injured in several accidents and spent 20-plus years as a constant sufferer on a bed.

And he learned the skill of the secret of the singing heart. After having spent, I think, some eight months, he said, "This is no way to live. These negative evaluations, I will learn a different way." And he wrote about it in books and in songs, and you sing them today.

And he talks about learning how to pull hard on the rope of the joy bells. Secondly, Elijah. Elijah was a man of like passion. He became focused on one woman after a great spiritual victory on Mount Carmel. His negative focus took him to a place of hopelessness. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die and said, "It is enough. Now, Lord, take my life. I'm no better than my father's."

And God had to listen to this still small voice.

Job could identify. And it was in my darkest days that the book of Job was one of the two that I could identify with. And Job said in a number of places here, he said, "Why did I not die at my birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

I am not at ease. I am not quiet. I have no rest when trouble comes. Terrors are turned upon me. They pursue my honor as the wind. And my posterity has passed like a cloud. And now my soul is poured out because of my flight.

The days of affliction take hold of me. And my bones are pierced in me at night. And my gnawing pains take no rest." Moses in Numbers 11. And so Moses said to the Lord, "Why have you afflicted your servant? Why have I not found favor in your sight that you have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them?

And you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a guardian carries a nursing child to the land where you swore by your fathers.' Where am I to get meat for all this people? For they weep over me, saying, 'Give us meat that we may eat.' I'm not able to bear all these people alone because the burden is too heavy for me. If you treat me like this, please kill me here and now if I have found favor in your sight and do not let me see my wretchedness."

Now, from what I know about major depression, this, what I hear from Moses, sounds like a tipping point.

And then there's Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet, constantly rejected by the people he sought to love and warn. And he wrestled with a sense of despair and failure. He said, "Cursed be the day in which I was born. Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me. Why did I come forth from the womb and see labor and sorrow that my day should be consumed with shame?" Now, that doesn't sound like a very victorious man of God.

Someone might say, "Oh, Jeremiah, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." Huh?

Charles Spurgeon.

Spurgeon said, "You do not always know what the depression is about. You cannot discern the form that broods over you. You cannot grasp the foe. I am almost persuaded that those of God's servants who have been the most favored have suffered more times of darkness than others."

And an artist who tried to paint the portrait of Charles Spurgeon, after much frustration, he said, "I cannot paint you. Your face is different every day." Charles has written some very good stuff about depression. And if you're interested, look up the valley of the shadow of death in his colorful description of Psalm 23.

J.B. Phillips, who wrote the paraphrase, the New Testament modern English. And Phillips suffered from mental affliction for many years, and he wrote about it. His father was never satisfied with anything that John did while he was growing up. This turned him into a perfectionist, continually falling short of his own standard.

I'll just say that perfectionism is a very fertile place for a tendency towards depression. So Phillips struggled constantly with his self-incrimination and his fear of failure. And he received many hours of counseling but to little avail. And yet, he never let the fears of guilt overcome him. And he worked hard at writing and addressing large audiences. And he described his battle, "I can with difficulty endure the days, but I frankly dread the nights.

The second part of almost every night of my life is shot through with such mental pain, fear, and horror that I frequently have to wake up myself in order to restore some sort of balance."

His wife authored a biography along with someone else called The Wounded Healer. And I've got that one on order.

And a historical figure, Abraham Lincoln, described his depression, "I am now of the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode that I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me."

I would just give you a brief summary of my journey out. And I went on a huge search and looking to find someone who could identify who's been through it and come out the other side. I would find books and some big thick books written by people who had done tremendous amounts of study and thought. And these books just were discouraging to me. I said, "You don't know what you're talking about." Finally, I found a little book in the corner of a little bookstore called Slaying the Giant by French O'Shields.

And French was a Presbyterian minister who lost his voice through some kind of speech difficulty. And then evaluating his world, plunged into despair and depression, severe depression. And this little book is a story of his journey out and his description of how he got out. And as I read this little book, put in simple layman terms, it says it's unedited. It made so much sense to me.

And in this book, he describes himself and his tendencies, describes what depression is like, highly recommended for reading. And in here, he describes what it means to use what he called spiritual exercises, basically cognitive therapy. And it's learning how to acknowledge who you are, acknowledge how you are, take responsibility, learn to be disciplined. And I learned I was very undisciplined in my thoughts. Learn to stop saying these negative statements about yourself, to evaluate them, to identify them, to write them down in a journal. And then as you do these exercises, as he describes thoroughly in his book, to find a New Testament book. And I started in the books of First and Second Peter, which are today very precious to me, to find the truth of scripture, personalize that truth, write it out, read it back to yourself, and out loud.

And to do this every day for at least a half hour. And for the first month, I saw no results. But as I sat back and did some of my typical evaluation, I realized that I'm changing. I don't have the despair hanging over me anymore. And the light began to dawn.

And over the course of probably three quarters of a year, I obtained what I think I call a full recovery. Does that mean it can't happen again? No, it does mean it can. And that's what's a bit frightening for me. But it's reality. But now I have the tools that I need.

And it does just plain take hard work. I wished for a switch to flip. I didn't want to be the way I was, but I didn't know the way out. It takes hard work and continues to take hard work. And in that whole story, I had lost my identity. I didn't know who I was anymore. And so even to this date, as I journal, I'm asking the question, "Who am I?" And I today know who I am again. I have an identity. My identity is back. I've been able to claim it. And I am so grateful that I am God's son. And I know exactly who I am. I'd like to answer this question in conclusion.

Should a Christian be on antidepressants? And there are two common answers. And those would be an unthoughtful yes and an unthoughtful no. And neither one are helpful.

God has made us with soul and body. We are both spiritual and we are physical. And both of these are in operation as we evaluate the brokenness of our world and how we experience it. Depression is that negative emotion that we have in response to our evaluation.

And so first, let me address the unthoughtful yes.

The yes, antidepressants are good for the Christian to take.

And that's how our culture around us would view things. They don't see the spiritual aspect. And they mostly see the physical. And they see the illnesses of the physical. And so if there's something wrong with us, then it's something wrong with our physical. And the physical needs to be treated and fixed. And this is then done by various psychiatric meds used in different amounts. And each of them are experimented with until they find one that works. And there's very intelligent doctors and psychiatrists that are using these. And typically, I wouldn't say they don't know what they're doing. They probably do.

But today, there are a number of psychiatrists that are now saying that meds are not the only answer. I'm thankful to hear this, that they're saying that meds cannot teach you how to handle stress. They can't. They medicate.

That meds cannot teach you how to relate with difficult people. Prozac has then been overrated. And pharmaceutical companies have cashed in on exaggerated advertising.

And so consumer marketing has convinced so many that meds will make you feel better. All you have to do is talk to your doctor. This is that unthoughtful yes. And some of us have been influenced by this view of our culture. But that's not the whole picture.

Well, secondly, the unthoughtful no. No, Christians should not be taking antidepressant meds. Now, this position is saying that we are in total control of our realities by our spiritual choices that we make.

But we are not entirely spirit. We're also body. We're also physical. And God's care for us is spiritually in his focus. But he also does care about our physical. We mentioned Elijah earlier. And God spoke to Elijah about his spiritual focus. And he told him that not all have bowed the knee to Baal. There he gets 7,000.

Elijah needed to get a bigger picture than just one woman who was out to kill him. But Elijah also needed physical care. And God cared for him physically. He gave him food and rest. What I'm trying to say is that our physical bodies need care, including our brains.

Brain health is a real thing.

And I didn't always realize this. Brain health is a real thing, just like heart health. Our minds are frail. And we need to take care of them. We need to understand that corruption happened at the fall, both spiritual and physical.

The ground needs work and produces weeds. Childbearing became painful. The physical was touched with dysfunction. That's why we have tornadoes, earthquakes, and disease. And this means that our bodies don't always function as they're designed to. We have our limitations. Our bodies can malfunction, including our brains.

And I really believe my brain malfunctioned. It got to be too much. And I can literally tell you the day when I felt something slip. Can't really describe it, but something slipped. Something went wrong. And so at times, antidepressant medication will be helpful to aid because of the brokenness of our minds.

And perhaps they can be helpful to slow down a spinning mind that is an out-of-control brain so that this individual can concentrate on the more important aspects of correct spiritual exercises and biblical meditation. A racing mind simply cannot meditate on Psalm 23 for spiritual help.

Believe me.

Now, to say that meds are the total answer is error. To say that meds are of no use is also error.

It may well be a humble reality that some may need to accept the fact that medication is needed for me because of my weakness. And in that, may God be glorified because of our weaknesses.

Finally, I'll just say to say that the Lord is my light really becomes a reality when we understand darkness. And severe depression is darkness.

Turn it back to Glenn. All right. Thank you very much, Brother Berlin, for sharing. I appreciate all the thought and carefulness that you've put into that. And I appreciate how you're using your experience to now help others. That's a blessing.

We're going to be opening up to questions here in just a moment. And maybe I'll just start off with a question here for you. You talked about the way out. And I was wondering if somebody in the group here or maybe somebody close, somebody that somebody here knows is struggling in this way, how would you advise them to get help?

You talked about some of those different things, journaling and so on. The one question I had was, what about third-party counseling, just as an example?

First of all, I would say that depression has its stages. And we need to be careful to try to understand what stage a person might be at in their depression and in their journey. There was a point where I could not articulate what in the world was going on. I had no idea.

And so you need to work with the person and to understand at what stage they are. And so how you are feeling is a good question to ask. How are you feeling? Even though we know our feelings aren't something we go by, but they are reflectors to tell us.

Yeah. And third-party counseling, I think, is a very good thing to be encouraged to encourage them to do. And especially if someone is at the tipping point and appears suicidal, action needs to be taken to actually get them to a doctor.

It's nothing to mess with. And so maybe I'll just in brief quickly say that in the back of Slaying the Giant, there's a good helpful section on how to help those how to be a helper and things to do and not to do. And I find those points to be on target, such as do spend time with him, do be very patient, do endeavor to instill and program hope, do suggest thoughts to help to change his perspective.

And then there's a bunch of don'ts.

Do not help him justify his self-pity or depression. Do not condemn or make him feel guilty for being depressed. Do not be overly cheerful. Do not argue. Do not play the role of his professional therapist. Do not underestimate your importance as a helper. And do not assume responsibility for his recovery. Those I thought for my wife, she found very helpful once we discovered those.

But I do think that, yeah, that care for people that are struggling is very important in your involvement. That's a brief answer. Yeah. Thank you for that. All right. I'd like to open it up to the audience here. If there's questions that you have, now is your opportunity.

Brother Berlin, I'm acquainted with an individual who was in severe depression for quite some time and very suicidal and so on.

There came a time that this individual had just a brief window, could we say, of an opening of faith and asked for an anointing with oil, called for the elders and anointed with oil. And it seemed that from that point on, things changed. She was off of medication.

And we're looking at probably upwards of 12 to 15 years free. Would you have any comments in relation to maybe that open window or how something like that could take place?

Oh, I certainly endorse anointing with oil and God's healing because I think there is a spiritual intervention that we do need the Lord's help. It wasn't that I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps at all. No, no. But I needed to work in cooperation with him. But it was his truth that freed me. And especially that casting oneself upon the Lord, that act of anointing and acknowledgment that this is what I need, acknowledging my struggle, yes, I feel it would be very helpful.