Overcoming Depression

Whether saint or sinner, when natural emotions for the unsaved or spiritual emotions for the saved are not expressed, opinions or true beliefs are not voiced and desires are not lived out in the body, they remain in the soul to be lived out in the imagination. The imagination then produces an even stronger desire for the emotions to be expressed by or through the flesh.

The continuous denial of these God-given expressions can lead to severe depression. This suppressed state can be caused by many different situations, circumstances or relationships. However, regardless of the root, suppression will lead to severe depression.

Depression is a state of despondency or dejection (sadness), which arises from feelings of severe hopelessness, inadequacy and despair. It is to accept a lying reality of having been forsaken. These feelings are extremely excessive when compared to the situations or circumstances from which they were birthed.

Depression is an abandonment of God and His promises. It places you in a world void of God’s power or presence. It is not a condition to be pitied or nurtured. But must be dealt with for what it is; a cruel and unfair behavior that puts our God to an open shame. But how do the sons of God fall into this abyss called depression?

As in all captivities of the soul and body, the child of God must first deny the Word of God and walk outside the boundaries of the faith. I cannot express enough the fact that it is impossible to walk in the Spirit of God and be depressed. This is a fact that cannot be ignored.

If there is to be any deliverance for the people of God, or the world for that matter, we must thoroughly examine the route a soul travels from being the light of the world to living in the deep darkness of depression. As always, the scriptures are faithful.

Luke 11:33-36

33 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.

34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

First, depression is a spiritual condition. It is not of the faith, nor the Kingdom of Light; therefore, it is devilish and of the darkness. It is due to failure to keep one’s eye (spiritual sight or vision) on things pertaining to godliness. It is a forsaking of the influence of grace and the purpose of life in Christ.

When the eye is single we are able to walk in the benefits of the gospel of Christ. One such benefit is the knowledge that we are able to do all things through Christ who strengthens us. There IS nothing in the will of God we are unable to perform. Therefore, we can only be rendered helpless when we attempt to do those things that are not His will.

Here is where we lose confidence in Him . . . knowing we are not in agreement with His purpose or design for our life. You may think you are not able to identify with these truths because you are often depressed. Also, you're not committing sins of the flesh. But I caution you on this wise, unbelief is sin. There are those who are depressed in ministry.

They want to accomplish ministerial goals that always seem to be out of reach. We may think such a one is to somehow be commended for their desire to do good. However, your desire cannot supersede God’s purpose, method or timing. He is the guide. We are the followers of His wisdom. Depression is the result of a lack of faith.

When the realities of life’s situations are too intimidating to face, these situations or circumstances must somehow be removed from the thoughts. This might be difficult though, if our daily activities are such that these intimidating situations are ever present. An eventual physical shutdown is on the way.

Suddenly you are too tired to get up or go out. It becomes almost impossible to properly function in your environment because much of your mental faculties are held captive by fear. It is the fear of thinking on those things that were taken from reality and hidden in the depths of the imagination.

Therefore, there is only a small percentage of the mind left to process what is going on around you. Lust for things of the world can cause depression. When the eye is evil, or rather when we forsake Christ and turn in pursuit of the things of this world, then surely darkness will consume our whole being.

Oftentimes, the pursuit of our dreams and aspirations are met with fierce opposition, causing delay and even impossibility. Thus, hope deferred makes the heart sick. When the eye is not single, the whole body is full of darkness. Those who depart from the path God placed them on are blind and cannot see where they go. In some cases, one might wake up to this reality, knowing that he has lost direction and the ability to accomplish his or her dream.

At that point, the right and righteous thing to do would be to return to the Father in repentance. But either stubbornness, pride or both mandate further vain efforts to accomplish the desire of the heart. These vain efforts could lead to depression; a world of darkness perpetuated by the fact that he or she is aware of the abandonment of God’s purpose for their life.

The acquisition of all the riches in the world will not remove that truth. They will simply be wealthy and depressed, knowing God is not pleased with them. If such a one does not quickly repent, they will remain in this state of despair with nothing to look forward to except the indignation of our God.

SUPPRESSION CAN CAUSE DEPRESSION

The human vessel has a built-in desire to give and receive love, affection, consideration and kindness. When involvement in circumstances, situations or relationships form a mindset that denies expression, or the receiving of love, kindness and affectionate touch; suppression rules in the relationship.

The word suppression means to hold back or deny expression and thoughts. There are many reasons that may cause suppression of your innermost feelings or thoughts. Regardless of the reasons, suppression is one of the most common causes of depression.

I need you to remember though, that these are all conditions and operations of the flesh. They do not exist in the one who walks in the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. In severe cases of suppression, the mind seeks to defend itself by turning against the flesh.

Because the flesh is unable to provide an outlet for the emotions, it becomes the enemy in the thought war. The mind or soul seeks to maintain its supremacy by labeling the flesh as guilty, useless, lonely and not worthy of affection. This is true depression.

Dealing with authoritative figures in your life can cause suppression. For instance, many children live a life of suppression because their parents do not allow them freedom to express themselves. The child is trained to simply respond to parental authority. They are never given a platform to voice his opinions, feelings, or emotions concerning things that affect his life. In some cases, the child’s suppressed emotions or thoughts are pushed so deep inside, they seemingly cease to exist.

The child can grow up in a situation like this and become so programmed that he will not voice his true feelings, for fear of punishment or rejection of some kind. This programming leads the fleshy mind to conclude and accept the situation as “just the way things are.” The fleshy mind may then accept what used to be “just the way things are” as “the way things ought to be.”

If this is the case, the mind has to bury the emotional pain that goes with suppression, as well as bury the suppressed thoughts themselves. This burial becomes so deep that these thoughts cease to exist as reality to the individual. In other words, these feelings are buried so deep, that you will feel as if the mindset that has developed from suppression is really your true character. This is a lie.

Your true character is hidden beneath the suppression. You really want to express your emotions, voice your opinions and display your desires, but the authorities or situations in your life simply will not allow this.

You have submitted to suppression. What you have now is simply learned behavior. You may in turn raise your children the same way. You may be authoritative without listening to the mental disposition of your children. This is why many teenagers are committing suicide. They feel they have no one to talk to, when it is really their parents with whom they cannot communicate.

This suppressed state is what makes them vulnerable to any lie the enemy will perpetrate. Suddenly, there is no one in the world for them. No one understands and no one cares.

Life seems useless and meaningless. The suppression has now progressed into depression. The heart has fainted. The emotions are exhausted. The will to live is broken. The imagination is filled with the image of a worthless, no good person who is undeserving of love and may no longer desire to interact with society.

FRUSTRATION CAN LEAD TO DEPRESSION

Although frustration is covered thoroughly in Chapter Eight, it is mentioned briefly here because it is another operation of the mind that can lead to depression. Frustration is an erroneous interpretation of life’s experiences. It brings all movement, naturally and spiritually, to a halt.

When you cannot see situations, circumstances and relationships the way God sees them, you will produce erroneous conclusions in your mind about the position of things in your surroundings. Frustration is discontentment, caused by either a lack of exposure to the truth, or a rejection of the truth to which you were exposed.

Frustration can lead one into great distress. Distress is narrowness of thought, or to categorize events in circumstances or relationships as calamitous beyond solution. It causes you to become small in your thinking and thus you have to suppress reasoning, counsel and hope.

STRESS CAN ALSO BE AN AGENT OF DEPRESSION

Stress means to over-extend the workings of the mind; to involve it in too many projects. True expression of emotions, thoughts or ideas concerning either project is not allowed. Each project has its own set of circumstances, situations and relationships to which the mind feels obligated to respond.

The multitude of projects produce a subtle urgency for mental response to each. The rapidity of response to all the scenarios can cause the mind to be over- extended and fatigued. This is also caused by feelings or ideas being put on hold for one project while another is being dealt with. Here again is suppression of emotions and thoughts, which lead to depression.

DOUBT

Doubt is another operation of the mind that can lead one into depression. Doubt means not accepting the Word of God as truth. It holds an element of truth, but wavers over to unbelief or a lack of acceptance of that truth. Doubt is never sure of the end. It can only half-heartedly hope for good to prevail. Doubt cannot trust God or anyone else totally. It cannot truly love freely or godly. Emotions are suppressed and joy is lost in uncertainty. The only deliverance is to accept and trust the Word of God as the final authority in every situation, circumstance and relationship.

AN UNFORGIVING HEART

Forgiveness has proven to be a hard task for many saints. This should not be the case. After all, God was gracious and loving enough to forgive our trespasses against Him. I think many Christians are still unaware of the negative ramifications they will encounter as a result of their refusal to forgive those who offend them.

Unforgiveness causes you to override your conscience and the Holy Ghost in order to keep hurts, disappointments and pain alive. Love is suppressed and therefore all emotions and liberating thoughts are depressed. This hardness of the heart forbids the expression of true love, kindness, affection and consideration of another. Again, you must accept the Word of God as the final authority and be willing to allow it to heal you.

Consider the following scripture.

Proverbs 16:6

6 By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.

SUPPRESSION

When the heart faints, all emotions, thoughts and desires are confined to the imagination. The imagination is the burial ground. None of these seem able to be expressed in the flesh. They are buried deep enough so that the flesh no longer feels deprived.

This burial also serves as a protective device from the pain that accompanies suppression. If the burial is deep enough, these emotions and thoughts will seemingly cease to exist. This learned behavior becomes readily accepted, because it is the ultimate cover- up. Although they are suppressed, these emotions, thoughts and desires still exist.

These emotions continue to desire an outlet for expression. You may not even be aware of this. You may be deceived by satan’s perfect mask. He will use this scenario to convince you that the mindset developed is actually your true character. You will believe this if you have no teaching to the contrary.

The emotions that are common to suppression are: anger, wrath, hurt and disappointment. These feelings are internalized as the mind must protect itself from exposure and deliver itself from hurt and disappointment. The true disposition is buried deep inside the imagination of the heart. The soil there will be fertile, if the Word of God is not hidden in the heart.

This lying mindset, with its lying emotions, is used as a burial garment for your true feelings. But as is the case with all fleshy things, the covering will eventually rot and the seed of all the hurt, anger, disappointment and wrath will take root in the heart.

THE HEART KNOWS ITS OWN BITTERNESS

This root is one of bitterness (resulting from or expressive of severe grief, anguish, disappointment, or strong animosity). King Solomon really understood this false

disposition of the fleshy mind. Let us take a look at some of his writings from the book of Proverbs.

Proverbs 14:10

The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.

Proverbs 14:13

Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.

Proverbs 15:13

A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of heart is the spirit broken.

The heart knows it’s own bitterness. It has experienced, entertained and nurtured it deep in the darkness of the imagination. Even though the face wears a smile and the overall attitude is one of contentment, there is sorrow on the inside. The end is going to be heaviness, which is the Biblical term for sorrow or grief.

The spirit or exhalation of the soul will be broken, as the root continues to grow, consuming all righteous desires and peace. The will becomes paralyzed and is unable to fight back. The absence of the Word of God in your heart will make it easy for a root of bitterness to strangle every good and pleasant thing in the soul.

This root of bitterness will affect the inward parts in such a way that it will be reflected in your overall character. It will cause your belief system to change. In the end, there will be an acceptance of a new mindset of hopelessness, because the flesh still has not provided an outlet for the expression of the original feelings and thoughts. The mind will seek to protect itself by turning against the flesh and labeling it as the enemy.

A TRANSIC OR PLATONIC STATE OF MIND

Although interactions with those in your sphere of influence may be restrained, the heart knows its own bitterness. It lives on in the world of the imagination, separate and apart from the activities of the flesh. This mental state could progress into either a transic or platonic state of mind.

Transic means to be completely lost in thought or meditation as to be unaware of one’s surroundings. A person in a platonic state of mind is usually very legalistic and void of any affection or outward show of emotion. (The definitions for Platonic and Transic were formed or derived from divine study, revelations and Webster’s Dictionary).

If something happens to challenge the authenticity of the displayed mindset, such as the invasion of truth, the mind must then fight to keep the covering secure. If something inside a relationship is done to awaken the desire to truly express emotions and thoughts of the heart, the mind will either surrender to the desire or withdraw even further into darkness. As I said earlier, we must see every situation through the eyes of God.

Depression is an act of withdrawal from a present reality into a world of grayed horizons and shadows of figures. This is a world where there is no structure and the light of it becomes dimmer each day. This is a world I am quite familiar with because at a very young age, I sank into that horrible abyss called depression. Tanya was with her father for the summer and Michael and Michelle were with their Grandmother. But where was I?

This room is not familiar to me. It is small and the mattress on the pull-out bed seems damp. The clock on the microwave says 6:13 . . . is it that late already? I need to go make some phone calls. I saw a few jobs in the paper. I think I’ll take a shower and go down to the park just to get out of the house. I need to finish reading that chapter in Isaiah. If I had a car I could go up to Palm Beach and see Mama. I can’t believe I slept all day.

Now you know you’ve been sleeping all day every day for quite a while now. Get up Mary and do something. Go see Gloria. See what she’s up to. Yeah, but then what? We’ll laugh and talk for a while, but Gloria doesn’t really know me. She doesn’t know what I really want to do. She probably wouldn’t believe it anyway.

What is that on the wall? It looks like someone started to carve their name or something. I forgot to wash out that white blouse today. Oh Lord, I’m about to miss his show. I hope he finishes that lesson he was teaching last week. Let me get my notes. What kind of work can I do to make some quick money?

Michael is going to be a preacher. I know he is. I need to get a place and go get all my children. Tanya might not want to come back home. Things have been pretty rough here. She can’t take this. Besides, she hates me for not keeping a job like I used to. The house is gone, and that little money I got from it is gone too. This bed is so hard. It’s dark outside. I better lay back down.

Beloved, this was my mind continuously, day after day. Every thought was a dead-end. Words like “go” and “get up” revealed the weight of a millstone tied to my waste. I can’t go. Where do you go? There was nothing in the world outside for me. There was no continuity in my thinking; I could not focus. I studied the Word daily, but God was not using me either.

I had no direction. I didn’t know what to do. I had no confidence in any potential project. I was a preacher with no place to preach. I was living holy. I had truly repented of my sin. Yet God didn’t even seem to want me in His service. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I gave up all my businesses and any professional aspirations to be free to preach the gospel. But there was no one there to teach, train, or even prepare me for the pitfalls of full-time evangelism. I knew nothing about starting a ministry. People had started calling me to preach in their churches and I thought this was surely the launching of my ministerial career.

Where were the elders? Where were the wise men and women who nurtured and spiritually developed young saplings like myself? Why didn’t they rush upon me and tell me I wasn’t ready for what the devil was bringing my way? He was tall, dark and handsome, gifted and charismatic. He was a one-man church. He could sing, dance, preach and pray. We seemed to fit like a pair of leather gloves. We both fell prey to the deception of sin.

But one day, I realized my love for God and ministry was greater than anything I could experience in this world. I walked away and went to seek my God. I begged and pleaded for forgiveness. I was horrified by the thought of not being able to serve the Lord. Had my prayers been answered? Yes, God had forgiven me for the sin. This I know, because He really and truly strengthened me with a spirit of might in my inner man. I was able to walk away and stay away.

Repentance and submission to the righteousness of God had removed any desire to renew the relationship. I thank God for the prayers of the righteous saints who prayed for me. Though the darkness was so great and all consuming, I had to find a way to focus on the truth in order to come back to reality. I had to repent for allowing any distractions to my purpose.

If you find yourself slipping into depression, cry out to the Lord before it is too late or before you fall so far that you forget the power of your own prayers.

The second alternative for the mind is to accept, as reality, the cruel rejection of its attempts to express its innermost feelings. The unfair response of loved ones or authoritative figures must be dealt with. The only way to deal with this truth, without the presence of the Word of God, is to fight back with hatred, strife and malice. These destructive feelings are good protection and cover-up devices used to conceal true feelings of love and affection.

Once again, true nature, thoughts, ideas and character are suppressed, while rebellion and hatred rule the relationship. Consequently, one does not have to appear physically depressed to be withdrawn from expression of true emotion. Men and women alike suffer from this depressed state of mind. Some men cover it with abuse or meanness, lack of sensitivity or hardness of heart. Women on the other hand, being accustomed to living out of their emotions, will respond with what appears to be outright hatred and vindictiveness. In either case, love, affection and kindness is withdrawn from their relationships. It becomes a form of punishment to those whom they have become fearful to love and trust. This does not mean they do not want to love others. They have been deprived; therefore, no one else deserves to receive that which they have not received.

As the root of bitterness grows, the poison spreads. Their character may become one of meanness and hatefulness. This is sad because children, husbands and wives alike suffer in this situation. Can this mindset be changed? Yes, it can be changed.

1. You must accept the truth and see yourself as who you really are.

2. You must try to understand how you got to where you are.

3. You must be willing to accept the Word of God, not people, as the healing balm.

4. You must also be willing to be re-educated as to how to allow love and kindness to flow from your heart into the lives of others.

You can choose to accept the fact that your feelings and emotions have been suppressed throughout childhood. Right now, become determined to overcome this reality with a new mindset.

You can purpose in your heart not to allow yourself to remain depressed due to suppressed feelings and thoughts. You can agree with God. The old man is dead with all his hurts, timidity, obsessions and frustrations. You are new. The life you live in the flesh now is Christ. He is not depressed or suppressed. He always trusts and agrees with the Father.

The Word of God will deliver you. The Word can destroy the effects of the offenses to your emotions and restore the God-given right to communicate. Strive to be sober. Accept the fact that your mind was suppressed, worked or driven into depression.

All this may be true, but God has given you the answer. You can win this battle. You are worth it. Fight to speak your true heart. The Word will teach you how to speak your true feelings without offending others.

The Word will open up a completely new world of emotions and desires. It will build courage in your heart so that the habit of suppression will be broken. It will teach you how to walk in the Spirit of God. If you are not sitting in a church that has a revelation of the Christ in you, then ask the Father to lead you to one that does. It is the knowledge of Christ that strengthens us in our inner man.

Do not lie to yourself. If you suffer from these captivities of the mind, then seek out the riches of God’s glory for deliverance. Do not withdraw and do not push forward into pride, but stand fast and allow the liberty of Christ to make you free.