ArticleBlog | The Word on depression: Three passages to unpack
The Word on depression: Three passages to unpack
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.09.18
One of the most commonly stated reasons people with mental health issues struggle with church is the relentlessly upbeat tone from the pulpit and the song sheet. God has triumphed over sin and death and so will you! Praise the Lord! When you are already feeling like an abject failure, being reminded of the absence of joy in your salvation can take you into deeper darkness.
W hen did you last deliver or hear a sermon on Lamentations or Job? Have you lingered at the end of Jonah lately, or gone past the beginning of Acts where it’s all new and exciting to the bit where they start being martyred and fighting with each other? King David wrestled with doubt and despair; Hannah, the mother of the great priest Samuel was uterly distraught by the long years of infertility (1 Samuel 1:7–10); and the apostle Paul at times ‘despaired of life itself’ (2 Corinthians 1:8). If we are not addressing the full range of human experience in our preaching and our sung worship, it is not because the Bible doesn’t give us material to work with. Here are three passages which weave together the twin realities of agonising suffering and the goodness, mercy and love of Emmanuel, God with us.
EVEN THE BEST OF US 1 Kings 19
The story of Elijah is a powerful affirmation that God sees, uses and cares for us, even when we are at our lowest and most broken. The biblical picture of humanity has not been photoshopped and things get pretty blurry,
