Depression
Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: "The gods will get you for this and I'll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you'll be as dead as any one of those prophets." When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day's journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all — to just die: "Enough of this, God! Take my life — I'm ready to join my ancestors in the grave!" Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush. (1 Kings 19:1-4)
Depression. We may call it "the blues," or maybe just "a slump" but it’s all the same. Regardless of what you call it, depression is the most widespread form of emotional illness. It’s the common cold of emotional disorders. In a study of more than 11,000 individuals suffering from depression, clinicians found depression to be more physically and socially disabling than arthritis, diabetes, lung disease, chronic back problems, hypertension and gastrointestinal illnesses. The only medical problem that was more disabling was advanced coronary heart disease. That’s a problem.
Unfortunately, there’s a stigma attached to depression where some think that if a person is in a close relationship with God they’ll never be depressed. That’s a lie. The truth is that there are going to be days, weeks perhaps, maybe even seasons when you wrestle with depression. But that doesn't mean you’re a bad person, a weak person or even an ungodly person. Plenty of people in the Bible suffered from bouts of depression: Moses, Jeremiah and Job, to name a few. Even contemporary figures like Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon suffered from depression – Spurgeon to the point that he was absent from the pulpit for 2 to 3 months at a stretch. Christianity isn’t an inoculation against depression.
In the passage, Elijah was God's prophet during a time in the life of the nation of Israel when its rulers were leading the people to worship the false gods of Baal and Asherah. To discipline the Israelites and encourage them to turn away from their idols, God shut off the tap and neither dew nor rain fell on the land for three years which resulted in a severe famine. And at the very height of the drought, Elijah challenged King Ahab and his false prophets to a public contest on the top of Mt. Carmel to demonstrate both the power of God and the weakness of Baal and Asherah. Two bulls were chosen for the contest. Elijah sacrificed one to God; the false prophets sacrificed theirs to their idols. The contest was to see whose god was capable of sending fire to consume the bull that lay on the altar.
The 850 false prophets went first. They tried from early morning until late in the afternoon to get their "god" to respond. They ranted and raved and cut themselves to get its attention, all to no avail. Then it was Elijah's turn and he had barely ended his prayer when God answered by sending fire to consume not only the bull that Elijah had drenched with water but the stone altar, too. The wide-eyed Israelites responded in true belief and worship by falling to the ground and confessing that Yahweh, alone, was God. Elijah then commanded that the 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah be seized and executed according to the law of God recorded in Deuteronomy 7. Having finished off the false prophets, Elijah then prayed that God would end the drought and God did just that after Elijah had told Ahab that he’d better hot-foot it the 17 miles back to Jezreel to avoid the approaching downpour.
When Ahab arrived at his summer palace in Jezreel, he was pretty pumped and as he entered the palace he called for Queen Jezebel to tell her all about what had happened. But the part about the power of the living God, the fire from heaven and the thunder and rain that came after Elijah prayed was drowned out when the king got around to telling his wife that 850 of her prophets had been killed. In retaliation, Jezebel put a contract out on Elijah’s life, effectively raining on Ahab’s parade, not to mention Elijah’s. And Elijah’s response? He ran. A lot. Some 115 miles, all the way to Beersheba where he left his servant. And then he continued another day's journey into the Negev (desert) where he pulled up under a Juniper tree and begged God to take him out.
Have you ever felt that way? Like life has gone so sideways, so upside down that it’s just not worth it anymore? That there’s not a soul out there who cares? The truth is that life is full of ups and downs; you can count on that. In fact, it seems like after every down there’s an up, and after every up there’s always a down. Life is not just one long joy ride that keeps getting better and better. There are mountains and valleys, and Elijah had just climbed the Mt. Everest of his prophetic life. And when we have great times of accomplishment and joy in life, we should learn to anticipate the inevitable lows that will occur, like the one that hit Elijah. But depression is not a “pit.” Think of it more like a “tunnel,” because as soon as we enter depression, we’re already on the way out.
Unfortunately, we make ourselves especially susceptible to depression when we take our eyes off God. Remember when Elijah heard Jezebel's threat? What’d he do? He ran. In fear. He took his eyes off God, took one look at Jezebel and literally ran right into the pits of despair. But why? Hadn’t Elijah just sat ring-side and observed one of the greatest victories in his life? Yes, but when Jezebel promised to end his 24 hours later, Elijah forgot all about God’s victory. He took his eyes off the power of God and focused, instead, on Jezebel and her henchmen. Result? Despair. So, when life's inevitable problems approach, keep your eyes on God. If you don’t, you open the door of your heart and mind to depression which will pull up a chair and make itself at home. Instead, dwell on God's greatness and remember all the ways that he has been faithful to you. Keep a journal, if that helps.
Depression, however, is not just mental; physical stress can cause emotional distress, too. Just prior to the onset of his depression, Elijah had put his body through incredible physical stress: he’d run over 100 miles without stopping, was physically exhausted and, prior to his quintuple marathon, had put in a full day of exhausting ministry on top of Mt. Carmel only to run another 17 miles ahead of the King’s chariot to beat the raindrops. So his depression was almost inevitable because physical stress can negatively affect our emotional health. And sometimes the most practical thing some of us can do when dealing with depression is to stop running ourselves into the ground. There's an old Greek proverb that says, "You will break the bow if you always keep it bent." In other words, if you're living under constant, relentless physical stress you will eventually break under the pressure.
We’re also more susceptible to depression when we’re alone. Remember, Elijah went off by himself and sat under that juniper tree wanting to die, feeling like he was the only one left – that he was all alone fighting for God. When we get depressed and discouraged, the first thing we tend to do is get alone by ourselves. Loneliness, however, is one of the greatest contributors to depression. When we draw into a shell and cut ourselves off from others we naturally begin to feast on self-pity. But God didn't design us to live like hermits.
God built us in such a way that life works best for us when we live in friendship and fellowship and community with others. That's why the church, the body of Christ, is so important, because that’s where we’re drawn together in love and mutual encouragement. We're meant to be a part of each other’s lives.
Elijah’s experience also demonstrates that when it comes to depression, doing affects feeling. Sitting alone under a tree with nothing to do but focusing on his own problems simply made Elijah's despair even worse. So God got him out from under the tree, away from the pity party and put him to work. God told Elijah that he had a job to do, i.e., two (2) kings needed crowning, and he had his prophetic successor, Elisha, to appoint. So when depression attacks, don’t go off somewhere by yourself and dwell on it. Instead, get your body moving because physical activity can be like good medicine for your emotions since our emotions can be rebellious at times; they don’t always take orders. They can easily ignore commands such as "Stop being angry," or "Don't feel sad," or "Be happy." It’s difficult to control our emotions, but we can control our bodies and forcing our bodies to do something that needs doing can have the effect of making us feel better.
Martin Luther advised people with mild bouts of depression to ignore the heaviness. "A good way to exorcize the Devil," Luther maintained, "was to harness the horses and spread manure on the fields." In other words, get to work. Do something productive and you’ll feel productive. Doing affects feeling. God reminded Elijah to focus on the needs of others since there was an entire nation that needed his ministry. And that’s what Philippians 2:4 means when it encourages us to, ".... look not only to our own interests (needs) but also to the interests of others." We must have an underlying agreement with each other, and with ourselves, that the people who enter our lives don't have to have it all together in order to gain our acceptance.
In a very real sense, every church is a hospital: a place where the hurting and injured can come to find healing. It's a place where people can honestly admit their struggles and find rest for themselves. Jesus said, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy ladened and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28) So, we should take seriously Paul's injunction when he says to "encourage the fainthearted, help the weak and be patient with all men." (1 Thess. 5:14) David, in speaking about God, said that God would “…lift them out of the pits of despair … out of the mud and mire, and set their feet on the rock.” (Psalm 40:2) We need to remind ourselves of that truth and share it with a hopeless world because who knows? It might just save a trip to the doctor.
Grace,
Randy
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