Christians may be tempted to confuse depression with sadness, grief, or discontentment, but there is a huge difference between depression and sadness, grief, discontentment. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “The death of a loved one, loss of a job or the ending of a relationship are difficult experiences for a person to endure. It is normal for feelings of sadness or grief to develop in response to such situations.”
The symptoms of depression include a loss of interests in activities that a person normally would enjoy, changes in appetite, difficulty sleeping or sleeping beyond what is normal, fatigue, slowed movements, slowed speech, feelings of worthlessness, difficulty concentrating, and suicidal thoughts or thoughts of death.
Is This Depression and Discontentment?
Discontentment is the failure to be satisfied with one’s status or possessions. In the Bible, discontentment is associated with Israel’s complaints after having been saved from Egypt: they looked at their present situation, liberated from Egypt, as worse than their former bondage (Ex. 16).
Depression is more like the feelings described in Psalm 88. The psalmist writes, “For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness” (Ps. 88: 3,7, and 18).
Kathryn Green-McCreight in Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness describes her experiences with bi-polar disorder. She writes, “depression is not just sadness or sorrow. Depression is not just negative thinking… It is being cast to the very end of your tether and, quite frankly, feeling as though you are being dropped…While God certainly can pick up the pieces and put them together in a new way, this can only happen if the depressed brain makes it through an episode to see life among the living.”
This is important to realize because if we fail to recognize these distinctions, we could give a person suffering from depression superficial and simplistic answers that could lead to serious harm—for example, expecting a person to “just stop” struggling with thoughts of suicide or failing to take symptoms seriously could result in that person’s death. If you know of anyone suffering symptoms of depression, you should take it very seriously and avoid giving simple answers or having what may seem like reasonable expectations for a person who is just sad or discontent.
Does Faith Make a Difference?
Theology will not end suffering, but it can help us to persevere through it. Michael S. Horton writes,
A robustly biblical theology of the cross and resurrection fixes our hope on Christ, who knows our suffering more than we do and who has overcome it objectively. We live in our Christian families and in our churches in that in-between time, awaiting the day when we share fully in body and in soul in Christ’s glory. Our churches have to be a place where we “wait for it with patience” together. In the process, we need better soul care that appreciates the extent to which physical and mental suffering can be relieved in the meantime. Christians should welcome these advances as signs of God’s orderly providence and compassionate care for his creatures. There will always be a central place for spiritual care especially the faithful ministry of preaching, teaching, sacraments, prayer, and discipline. But, like a kid with a broken leg, getting people to the “emergency room” may be the first order of business.
As Christians, our faith is not a substitute for therapy. It’s not an excuse to avoid doctors. It’s not going to change our circumstances; but our faith, our prayers, and our reading of Scripture can transform our experience of suffering. Prayer can help us to trust in God as we pour out our hearts to our Father. And yes, through prayer, God may answer by healing us of many pains and sufferings. We should believe that the Bible is true about the supernatural. Miracles can and do happen. But we shouldn’t demand it even though we can hope for it. There is a difference here.
Hoping in God, trusting in his goodness, allows for God to be free to do what he believes is best even if it doesn’t make sense to us in the moment. To hope means to desire our pain and suffering to end, but also to know that God really knows what is the best in our situation. This is hard to understand, and that is why we need to look at the reality of life, understanding who God really is through the cross of Jesus Christ. We need to let the love of God, shown by sending the Son to give us eternal life, act as a pair of glasses to give us a clearer vision of our situation. You can know that God cares because he has demonstrated his love through Jesus Christ.
Dig deeper with these free resources from Core Christianity:
- Read more about depression and mental health from our Core Guide: 9 Things Everyone Needs to Know about Depression
Footnotes
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression.
Kathryn Green-McCreight, Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness, 6.
Michael Horton “Faith and Mental Illness,” Modern Reformation, July/August 2014.
