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“Depression,
Faith and Hope" |
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“Depression,
Faith and Hope" |
Rev.
Dr Robert Iles
at Golden Grove Uniting Church, South Australia.
6.3.2005
I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a conference
With Professor Arch Hart, on Monday and Tuesday.
Hart is the founder emeritus of the school of psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary in S. California.
If it were not for that place I probably would not be standing before you today.
I used to be quite liberal in my theology but after my first parish in Waikerie, Cadell, Blanchetown and Morgan, (how did I have the energy for that parish)
I could see that liberal theology had little to say. Its main role is to doubt & question the central teachings of the Christian faith. And I could see the
Impossibility of maintaining a teaching and preaching ministry
With only that to say. So that seminary helped me to have
An evangelical theology that honours Scripture, history, tradition and current experience.
So Arch Hart, now retired, took a seminar for Synod ministers and leaders. One of the things he told us how psychology has changed.
Most modern psychology has been influenced and dominated by Sigmund Freud. And it has inherited Freud’s hostility to faith, until now.
Fuller’s School of psychology struggled to keep its accreditation because
Of this hostility. But a man by the name of Michael Seligman has changed all that within the past few years.
As the head of the APA he stated his convictions that only a faith perspective
That leads to hope can help modern people. It is a dramatic change for this organisation.
So he spoke about a lot of helpful things but the one that I want to share with you today, is the D word- Depression.
I am not going to pretend that I am a psychologist but I believe I should share with you some of this teaching.
For depression is very widespread.
In cost the Australian workplace around $600 million a year. We all experience it at times. Hart said that Rick Warren writes out his resignation Monday mornings
When he is depressed but no one he gives it to takes any notice of it.
Mine usually come out of the bottom draw around Synod and Assembly times.
Depression falls into two types, exogenous and endogenous or reactive depression.
The second usually relates to some bio-chemical problem and so a person needs to be on medication to counter it. Scientology is very upset at the widespread use of successful anti-depression drugs, because it is reducing the number
Of people they can ply their trade on.
The other type of depression is the one we can focus on, exogenous,
Because it is a reaction to certain painful events.
It comes from within and can be a good thing. It can be like when a dog or cat tangles with a car and if they survive, they retreat into some place where they can recover. They protect themselves so healing can happen.
Depression gives us space for recovery and healing. It creates a distance from
Certain events, emotions and experiences. Hart says that all exogenous depression is related to a sense of loss. It may the loss of a person, a job, our health,
A loss of money, our youth, our career prospects and more.
Hart related how his first new car was mangled and he had a great sense of loss because no matter how well it would be repaired, it would never
Be perfect again.
But what are the signs of depression? -
Persistent sad or anxious mood
- Anger, restlessness, irritability
- Sleeplessness, or not enough sleep
- Reduced appetite and weight loss, or inccreased appetite and weight gain
- Loss of pleasure and interest in things once enjoyed
- Persistent physical symptoms that don’t respond to treatment (such as chronic
pain or digestive disorders)
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering orr making decisions
- Fatigue or loss of energy
- Feeling guilty, hopeless or worthless
Last Sunday we saw how Jesus understood what it is like to be us, in Matthew 6.
He spoke about……… these things. OHP
But he didn’t mention depression, at least by name.
Is this because it’s not meant to happen? Do we feel that Christians must not and should not feel depressed sometimes? Is it a sin to be depressed?
Do we have to keep a Christian veneer when we are depressed, keep smiling, pretending, and denying we need help? I don’t think so. That’s not the way people in the Bible saw it.
Paul was overwhelmed when he went to Asia, like modern Turkey.
2 Cor. 1:8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
The great Paul was secure enough in Christ to speak of what he felt, and shared it with his people, even his critics in Corinth.
IN Church. 12 7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
He was probably also depressed about his illness. He prayed about it a lot.
He was in great pain, possibly from migraines or malaria. He sought the Lord to heal him of it, to take it away but that was not going to happen.
The Lord said, if you can handle your suffering you will be a deeper, better person, more dependent on me and I will do what you can’t. Forget about healing, trust me and you will be better off than if you were physically healed.
This suffering v.2ff., came after he had been allowed to look into heaven. Pain followed his revelation his high moment and that can happen with us.
The lowest times can come after some of the best times, the greatest victories, celebrations, achievements, such as some women experience post-natally.
We grieve over the loss of a great time, a great conference, a wonderful wedding,
Holiday and can suddenly make an emotional plunge into depression.
This happened to Elijah. He had a great victory over a bunch of pagans
Who has messed up people’s faith, like early liberals.
Then he was threatened by Jezebel. And the fiery prophet turned into the fleeing prophet and like the wounded animal fled to the desert for space and healing.
He had faith for the fight but not faith for the victory. And he wants to die, v.4.
Severe depression is sometimes tragically, linked with suicide and death and destructive lifestyles and addictions.
Diabetics can have such high and sometimes unexpected BG readings that they think, well why bother dieting if this is the best that can happen,
And the problem is worsened.
But the loving God who cares for people in depression, ministers to Elijah.
Elijah has lost interest in praying and obeying, further symptom of depression. He is tired and weak so God feeds him. He then flees further
From Jezebel’s threats and goes to Matthew Horeb, a place of revelation.
The Lord, like a compassionate therapist, asks him what’s wrong.
Elijah reminds the Lord of his achievements in verses 10,14.
He is physically, emotionally & spiritually spent. He has burnout.
His Counsellor attends to all those needs and then teaches him something
Wonderful through these events in the valley of despair.
God was not in the violent wind, or the earthquake, but in the still small voice,
A voice easily missed, then and now.
Elijah has had his earthquake event with the pagans, the wind of fire has swept upon them, but that is not enough. God’s people need the voice of God
The presence of a listening and healing God
if we are to cope with the Jezebels of life, the great successes of life
And the failures. We need the Lord’s compassion and grace at such times.
Hart says, we also need people.
Do you have at least one person with whom you can share?
Who will listen and hardly talk at all
Einstein’s life turned around after a walk in a forest with a friend.
His theory of relativity was so far advanced that scientific authority
Dismissed it and him and so he had to get a job in a Swiss patent office as a clerk.
He was depressed. He didn’t know how he could go on, how he could finish his writings on the subject, how to put it. So in this walk he went off with a very ordinary friend and talked. The friend said nothing. He just listened.
And then after a time, as Einstein unburdened himself,
He had a moment of revelation. He saw clearly how to do what he had to do.
He left the friend, dashed back and wrote out his article that
Would change the scientific and then philosophic community.
Can you help someone who is depressed? Can you pray for them? Can you listen to them? Can you keep your opinions to yourself and just listen in love?
Or when you experience depression do you have someone you can go to, to listen,
Share, help you process all that is going on. That is what a church community is for.
We need not just church growth but church health. Healing leads to growing.
This sacrament this morning is a healing sacrament. It is what the Lord gave Elijah, feeding, contact, rest, hope, all coming from the one who said
“Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest”.
He says the same thing to you today.
Rev. Dr Robert Iles