How do you deal with depression as a Christian?
I feel secure in knowing I have salvation, still study the Bible, argue for Christ at work and on Zig Forums (occasionally), and yet all I seem to be left with is this struggle with slipping into depression.
Deep down I still feel security and just wish Christ would come back already, but it doesn't help that I constantly fall into a crap feeling.
How do I learn joy?
Without being flippant, this is what should be happening to us all. Not to the point were we are living on the streets eating out of bins, but to the point where we realise that our possessions are of a distant ancillary to Grace.
That depression is purgative. It shows you the real value of everything that is not Christ.
Depression is less of a problem than despair or despondency which are things I have real trouble with (moreso the latter), and are actual sins, to the point where I can't even be bothered picking up scripture or praying.
Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted. When you feel miserable, focus and place your misery on HIM to carry you through it. It will be hard, but that is what makes you special, your ability to do this for HIM.
There is no easy "feel good" way into his kingdom. It will be a struggle for all of us, such is the price we pay for going against the world and following him. If the world hates you that is a good thing and shows that you are with him and he is with you. We're all going to resemble pic related with a shit ton more wrinkles and blown off limbs before our lives ends. This is our cross, it wasn't easy for Christ going up the hill, it wasn't easy for Abraham going to offer up his son and it will not be easy for us. But just take it take by day user, it will hurt, but you must endure. There will be good days and a lot of bad days, but look up at the night sky and see that there is more darkness than light, but that makes the light all the more precious, such is the light of our lord which must shine through you.
This might be the most helpful thing I've had in months. Seriously God bless user.
No sugar coated bs about him making it all magically better. It's a war out there.
Hey, it could be worse. You could be a young cross wearing male member of a genocided group with severe bipolar in a world controlled by an Illuminati run by demons. Oh wait…
That was poorly phrased. The individual has bipolar. The elf races of their respective worlds are typically cucks.
Nice post, really showcases are everyday struggles in this post. Also read book related, if you want a wake up call to what happens after death.
our*
St Johns Wort is Gods greatest gift to medecine
You learn it by calling out to God when you feel depressed. Some would say those bouts of depression are spiritual attacks to break your will from God.
Based Bump
Death will bring you joy,
Consider the following:
You must become mentally detached from all things material. This way you will not be dependent on anything but God, and God will provide you true joy
Man you guys can't help but be embarrassing can you? I'm consistently surprised at how much of a caricature you all are. Never gets old.
Death is something to look forward to if you believe in Christ.
Also, isn't trying to shame someone in an anonymous forum kinda pointless?
A failed generation summarized in 5 pseudo-edgy posts.
lol you must be new
lurk moar
or go back to reddit
Meh.
I strongly recommend spending time with some brothers.
Almost any Monastery will offer retreats ranging from a two day weekend to a few weeks. Many will open their doors to outsiders under other circumstances. It can really put your life in perspective to spend a few days around a group of people who spend every waking minute trying to please God to the best of their ability.
You have my prayers, wolf
Job and Ecclesiastes
You aren't depressed. You're sad. Depression isn't a real medical condition. You're sad about something in your life that's wrong. Someone is mistreating you, you're unsatisfied with your job, or you're lonely. Something like that. You should be angry, and motivated to make change, but you think you can't change the situation, so your anger has turned to sadness. You can change the situation. You can fake your own death and move to a foreign country under an assumed identity and start a new life if you need to. Apparently you're upset that you're single. You should be thankful. Most women are insufferable people.
How you can be depressed and be a Christian.
Every chance of me having a better tomorrow in terms of havin a normal life and being happy is fading day by day.
This tbh.
When I suffer, I remember the suffering of the saints and take comfort in knowing that maybe I'm living a life similar to theirs.
When I am lonely, I remember the loneliness that Christ surely felt when he wept and prayed to The Father while his disciples were asleep.
Just remember that pain builds virtue and strength.
Medicine. Don't be a hippie and take your pills, pilgram.
If you're depressed then you might as well give into an episode of despair because then there is something seriously wrong. Okay it's one thing to be bored but really if we appreciated our situation then every moment would be spent rejoicing or despairing. There is no time or reason to be depressed as a Christian.
Spotted the normalfag. Don't assume something isn't real just because you and your buddies haven't experienced it.
You're the one making assumptions about me and my experiences. And your assumptions are dead wrong.
There's no such thing as mental disorders. Schizophrenia is demonic attack.
This. If defining them as mental disorders was useful, psychology would actually cure people- it doesn't.
Conversely, admitting their demons allows Christians to drive them out and heal people.
Which is truth? The mindset that constantly proves ineffective and uncurable or the tried-and-true method.
The answer is obvious.
Wrong. Scripture says mental illness is a symptom of demonic possession, not that mental illness IS demonic possession.
Why yes, all the people who are convinced they are possessed and run to exorcists - Catholic or Protestant - and then get told to go to a psychiatrist are just being lied to.
"he KJV has an accurate rendering of Matthew 4:24, in which we learn that Jesus’ “fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.” That’s a neat threefold distinction between those whose diseases and torments are spiritual (daimonizomai, those tormented by demons) mental (selēniazomai, lunatics / the mentally ill) or physical (paralytikos, paralytics). In other words, Jesus is healing the soul, the mind, and the body.
This is a good reminder that the ancient world did get the difference between demonic possession, mental illness, and physical afflictions, even if they didn’t understand exactly what caused the latter two. Not every case that looks demonic is. It might be mental illness. But just as two different illnesses might have similar symptoms, the same is true here. Some physical cases look like mental, some mental cases look spiritual, etc. So just because some people who seem to be possessed are just mentally ill, it doesn’t follow that therefore all people who seem to be possessed are just mentally ill. The ancients actually got this better than many of their modern critics."
I said demonic attack. Possession is kind of an extreme.
Pills should be a last resort.
(and everyone I've ever known who identified as a "hippie" was taking pills.)
Full retard.
selēniazomai has 2 occurrences in the bible.
One in the verse you cited, the other in Matthew 17:15, where a father comes begging Christ for help with his selēniazomai afflicted son.
What does Christ do? He drives the demon out in Matthew 17:18. Because the selēniazomai was caused by a demon.
So there's your theory blown the winnie-the-pooh out.
I can't describe how much I relate to your feels OP. I feel this way too, but worse because as I get depressed I feel very tempted to just live for myself. But whenever I start living for self it very quickly gets dull and most of all the guilt of dismissing Christ's sacrifice stings into my very soul.
If someone has answers please help
Personally, i just can't do it *living for myself* for me personally only gets me so far. I was working in retail for just about a month. And i noticed very quickly that yes retail, is a very soul crushing job. But that it's also it's completely unsatisfying to have no absolute purpose in life. And i just kept being told, don't worry you'll feel happy once you get your first paycheck, and i did, and money , is nice, we need it to live. But there was still this void even at the time i wasn't into my faith as much and, i still had this hole telling me. That, this just isn't enough money alone and working in retail on my own willpower means nothing. If it's job related i would seriously consider doing some routine praying on job advice from the lord cause only he could know what's best. For instance im looking to get work in the fire dept, and i never thought i'd ever end up looking for work in the fire dept. Pretty awesome, it's just local volunteer work. I'd just start praying on what job the lord has set out for you. Of course for me personally i had to get into apologetic's, seeing what faith is true, so it's been a long trip i don't want to downplay that man. But we all got our own place in life.
So the time I hit my head really hard, then hallucinated being in two places at once and had trouble reading paragraphs and remembering things for several years afterwards my memory still isn't the same and likely never will be was actually demons all along?
youtube.com
youtube.com
Good lectures
The great saints didn't and fretted over it, you don't.
Ecclesiastes 9:1
You cannot know if you will see his hate or his love
The demons are the ones telling you that you hit your head- there was no actual injury…
MIND = BLOWN
No, because that's neurological illness, not "mental". Voices that tell you to kys is definitely demonic.
now that's a mental illness
Both of those statements are true. However I believe that if OP is supposed to take pills he should, and that hippies will take drugs, but they distrust doctors because, "muh holistic approach"
who "supposed" that OP should take pills- a secular doctor?
There is real medicine, but pharmacological drugs are quack science, and putting a bandage on a broken bone.
If actively trying to commit suicide or the voices in your head are so overwhelming you can't think - drugs can open a brief window so that someone can preach the gospel to you- cause that's the only thing that's going to save them.
Once you begin relying on drugs and not on God, well, then it's over.
Really makes you think
"How do I learn joy?"
It seems that you already have joy OP. I know it isn't obvious, but joy doesn't equal happiness. Joy can be had even in moments of despair and desperation. Joy doesn't always mean a smile, but a paradoxical contentment that seems to exist even in moments of apparent defeat.
Imagine you're a badass movie character, and the antagonist is about to kill you. As your arch nemesis is about to end your life, even knowing you're going to die, all you know to do is smile, because what he doesn't know is that you have a bomb under your shirt that will take him with you, ending his crime for good.
It's sort of like that. I know you're downcast and disheartened in many ways, but I want you to understand: your sadness with God is nothing compared to your sadness without God. You seem to have something that should otherwise be prized among people like me, security and assuredness that you are in fact, saved. Right now I'm hanging onto God by a thread, so much is wrong in my life but I know I can still cling to him. My fate seems unsure but deep down I know that my God is with me. But even now were in the same boat, and though you are certain and I am not certain, we both remain formidable because we know our God is with us.
So despair and be glad! Because so long as you are in christ, you will never taste the sting of defeat for you are victorious in him.
God bless OP, may your struggle be a symbol of your victory.
Hire someone who drags you out of the house and locks you out until you've did something other than moping around that day.
And who takes away your cellphone while doing that.
That's important, as well.
Then it's all a battle of being mopey vs being seen by people while you loiter around a house until you're too embarrassed to stick around and get your body moving.
Which in turn will give you a workout.
Which in turn will help your body purge accumulated metabolic products that don't help if you keep them in your system, like lactic acid and stuff like that.
You might even get so bored that you start looking at things again. Maybe some ants, some bugs, some birds, some people.
Maybe some sun will shine on you and warm you up, give you some vitamin D.
Maybe a sweet smelling wind will brush over you like a loving hand that tries to cheer you up.
All of these are maybes, but you can't even chance them if you stay inside and mope.
OP back. I thought this thread would have died but it's still here, and that's great.
Thanks, I'll check out those lectures.
I would argue with your two statements about salvation, but I think that might come down to a catholic vs protestant view.
I believe Jesus is the only way, I believe he died for me. I do not believe I have any way of effecting the efficiency of Christ's Justification on me with the sole exception of rejecting it and not believing anymore.
My struggle will always be as all other Christians with the process of sanctification, and continual repentance. But I have realized if I have to fret over my Justification I am either, considering if the justification of Christ is enough (which is must be according to the Bible), or relating my personal moral performance as the guideline for if I'm justified or not, which would place me firmly under the law again.
I live under grace as his justification provides. The struggle against sin and life are just elements of sanctification. This I believe to be the core behind the theology of the cross.
However, I think I understand why you would say that when I remind myself of the Catholic view on these things.
I feel you there brother. I keep slipping into that under the assumption that if I "live for myself" I can improve myself the most and at some time fulfill some ministry for Christ. But is that really the right mindset? I'm not so sure.
I'll strongly consider it. One problem I'm having is the lack of Christian friends where I live.
We have much the same mindset. Hanging onto God by a thread is the purest gospel when we realize just how vain and terrible everything else can be. By clinging to him you trust him and by trusting him you believe he has saved you. There is literally no simpler assurance of being justified in him than trusting (faith) that he has done so for you.
What if its a Christian anime?
Hang in there, man…He is holding you. Even if we refuse to see it.
veeery difficult to find.
Go away
t. boomer
Genetically yes but intellectually it will make you a sadder person. All the close to genius people i met can be really depressing.
I disagree with this because it relies on the assumption of being smart means you want to understand "reality".