Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness by Edward T. Welch Read Free Book Online

attacks.
    The details of how faith works in spiritual warfare are well known but easily forgotten.
    Remember that you have an enemy. Follow the lead of wise people who begin each day by actually saying, “Today, I must be alert that I have an enemy.” Ask others to remind you, and be quick to remind others. Realize that you are walking where rebels are known to be in the area. Their lives are devoted to your destruction.
    Assume that warfare rages. Don’t even bother looking for signs of warfare. Just assume that you are in the thick of it. If you want evidence, don’t look for it in the intensity of your depression. We don’t know if Satan has a hand in your depression itself, but we do know that he will use the chronic nature of your pain as a venue to employ well-worn strategies like these:
    Are you hopeless? Do you believe God is aloof and distant?
    Do you question God’s love?
    Do you question God’s forgiveness?
    Do you see no point in knowing Christ better? Remember that Satan will always attack the character of God.
    Are you listening to wise counsel and Scripture? If not, it is a sure sign that you are losing some spiritual skirmishes. Listening is a mark of humility, and Satan can’t successfully fight against it.
    Don’t think that your case is unique. This popular lie questions God’s care: all sufferers are tempted to believe that their suffering is unique.This lie immediately renders all counsel irrelevant because no one understands and no advice applies. The result is that the aloneness you already experience is now an established fact, and you are given ever more permission to despair.
    No one is immune from this lie, and everyone can give personal examples of its attraction. For example, William Cowper was a popular eighteenth-century hymn writer who wrote lyrics such as “There is a fountain filled with blood.” Although he was immersed in Scripture, he reported of his depression, “There is no encouragement in the Scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so effectual as to reach it.” 1
    With depression, assume the lie is present. Consider it a permanent attachment. As long as you struggle with depression, you will have to be particularly alert to it. Your goal isn’t to overcome it; your goal is to engage it with a growing knowledge of Jesus Christ.
    Know Christ. Satan’s energies zero in on one point: the truth about Jesus. If you are growing in an accurate knowledge of Jesus Christ, you are winning the battle. If you are not, you are losing ground daily.
    The knowledge of Christ is revealed most fully at the cross—the death and resurrection of Jesus, the thing of first importance (1 Cor. 15:3–5). The cross is the evidence that Christ’s love is much more than good intentions or compassion without action. It shows us that Christ’s love was a holy love that surpasses our understanding. If we are angry that God allows depression in our lives, we should be reminded that his love is much more sophisticated than we know. Our anger shows that we are small children who think we know what is best.
    It is no surprise that the knowledge of Christ is central to God’s plan for everything, not just spiritual warfare. God has exalted Christ over all things. When we know and honor Jesus, God is pleased tobless us with more: more knowledge, more faith, more love, more hope. We are thus better equipped to fight.
    Another reason it is so important to know Jesus is that one of the grand purposes of human existence is to look more and more like him. This is God’s plan for us. It is one of the greatest gifts he could give. It is evidence that he has brought us into his family. If Jesus learned obedience through suffering, we will too. A path without hardships should cause us to wonder if we really belong to God.
    The challenge for us is to think as God thinks. In other words, our present thinking must be turned upside-down. We once thought that suffering was to be avoided