Depression in the Church

09.13.19

Recently, the story of a young pastor who committed suicide was brought to my attention by one of my students. My heart is beyond broken for his family and for the countless people affected by the tragedy of his death. Please join me in praying for God to restore and refresh all of them fully. What I am about to say could be seen as insensitive, so I ask that you please hear my heart, when I say I am deeply grieved by all of it. Unfortunately, He made a choice that cannot be changed, but there are still other lives hanging in the balance. There’s still a battle raging between death and life. I feel as if I have to take a bold stance to help divide a lie from the truth in the midst of this story, specifically for those who looked up to him as a mental health advocate.

On Monday night, we held a night of worship and prayer in our home with a very small group of people. While I was worshiping and interceding, I had a vision of a beautiful plant. The plant looked like everything was thriving from afar, but as I got closer, I noticed that there was a weed completely intertwined with every stem of it. The weed was so unsuspecting and so camouflaged that it could have been easily passed off as part of the plant. I wondered how long it had been slowly choking out the plant, causing damage and draining all of it’s resources without anyone even knowing. Next I saw the hand of God come down and begin to unravel the weed from the plant. Piece by piece, He unwound and uprooted strands of the weed. I knew immediately what the Lord was saying. He is doing an unraveling work in the church in this season. He desperately seeks to see every lie separated from the truth and uprooted once and for all, so that the church can live with vibrancy again!

As I read an article about this man's story and life, the Lord spoke to my heart saying, “This is what it looks like to build an empire without my strength. He bought into the lie that his battle had to be fought through his own strength.” Many in the church have also bought into this lie. We must understand that our strength has absolutely no correlation with our success. However, our success is completely dependent upon our ability to yield to God’s strength.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (NKJV) says, “And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” I feel it necessary to point out the definition of sufficient. In the Greek, the word for sufficient is arkeo meaning to be enough, to be contented, or to be possessed by unfailing strength! In fact, Ephesians 4:7 (NKJV) says, “But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” This means that God will perfectly match your need with His strength!

A few years ago, when I was meditating on these scriptures, the Lord gave me an amazing illustration of yielding to His strength. I saw myself turn into a baseball glove. The glove was made of extremely strong leather, it was beautifully crafted and stitched, but when the hand of God came into it, the material was so stiff that it created resistance to His movement. The vision restarted, but this time I saw myself turn into a flimsy, garden glove. The glove itself didn’t look like anything desirable, but when the hand of God came into it, it was flexible enough to show off the strength of the hand within it. We were created to be the dwelling place of His strength. Often times, when we try to use our own strength, we become the very thing causing resistance to the hand of God, just like that still baseball glove. Can you image trying to pull weeds with that kind of glove? The tedious work of getting to the root of a weed without uprooting the entire plant requires a glove that prioritizes flexibility over strength in the material makeup! That flexible glove is symbolic of our surrender and vulnerability to the Lord. How much effort does it take for God to move you?

Weakness is much easier to use than ego. The only problem with this is that if we don’t allow the hand of God to move us, then the hand of the enemy will begin to take advantage of that same weakness that was meant to be used by God. We must become accustom to asking for help in every moment! God’s not looking for strong people, He’s simply looking for surrendered people. Romans 8:26-27 (NKJV) says, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” I believe one of the most practical displays of surrender is speaking in tongues. When I feel as if I have nothing left, like my patience has gone, I strengthen myself by allowing the Holy Spirit to pray through me. It’s the only kind of prayer that your flesh can’t overtake! How refreshing is it, that the Lord gave us a way to pray perfect prayers, even in the moments when our flesh gets the best of us?

I happened to see twitter page of this pastor, and when I did, I saw a post that took me back to the vision of the plant and weed. I had literally seen it the very night that he posted one last time and then committed suicide. He said:

“Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure suicidal thoughts.

Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure depression.

Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure PTSD.

Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure anxiety.

But that doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t offer us companionship and comfort.

He ALWAYS does that.”

The most convincing lies are always rooted with some form of truth. When I finished reading the post God spoke to me and said, “Loving Jesus can’t cure it, but Jesus’ love can!” The bottom line is that our love is flawed. It’s not enough. If it was, there would not have been a need for Jesus to come! But His love, it’s perfect and it’s already been paid for. If we can live by His Spirit that’s where we find the freedom from all these things.

Several weeks ago, I was driving to work when out of the blue the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Zerubbabel build me an altar. Zerubbabel have no fear. Zerubbabel the time is now to sacrifice all that’s dear.” It was so loud in my spirit that it almost sounded audible. The Lord predominately speaks to me in visions and impressions, so this was a bit out of the norm for me. I knew I had heard the name Zerubbabel before, and I knew it was from the Bible, but I couldn’t remember any details of the story. In fact, just to prove my point, I had got it in my mind that it was a building or a city, when it was actually a person who was called to rebuild the temple. I quickly studied every scripture I could find that correlated with this name.

The story of Zerubbabel is found in The book of Ezra, I encourage you to take some time studying the backstory to understand more of the message I am trying to get across. Long story short, the Israelites had been held in captivity by King Nebuchadnezzer in Babylon for years before the book of Ezra. They had not honored their covenant with the Lord, and as a result, the Lord allowed them to be overtaken. Babylon was literally known for a culture of chaos. At its origin, there were two specific provinces that made up their kingdom, and they seemed to be constantly at war with one another. Many in the body of Christ are like the Israelites and have been held captive by the chaos and torment of their minds.

When Cyrus King of Persia took over Babylon, the Lord moved upon his heart and gave the Israelites great favor (symbolic of the grace or unmerited favor given to us by God). By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, He started the process of releasing the people of God back to their land! Zerubbabel was the man chosen to lead the first group of Israelites. He was a descendant of King David and represents a man with a right heart. The very first thing he did after being set free was building an altar to reestablish the morning and evening sacrifices to the Lord. Zerubbabel understood that deliverance was just the beginning of the process. Historically, idolatry is what eroded the culture of Israel. Every time they would begin focusing their attention and affection on other things, they would find themselves in a mess of captivity once again. Zerubbabel knew that in order for them to thrive as a people group they had to set their focus on worshiping God by sacrificing anything that could potentially become an idol to them.

The Bible says, “Though fear had come upon them because of the people of those countries, they set the altar on its bases; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening burnt offerings.” (Ezra 3:3 NKJV) The Israelites had many enemies and had every reason to be afraid of what might happen if they found out that they had been freed. But they chose to prioritize what was right in the sight of God above the fear of man. God is drawing the body of Christ back to this mentality. Depression is an awful place of captivity for many, but true deliverance takes an act of surrender to God. The kind of act that doesn’t care what our friends and family will say in opposition to it. It wasn’t enough for Israel to just be set free, they had to also make things right before God and begin laying everything on the altar that could potentially become a distraction.

This is where many have failed. They’ve prayed the prayers and they’ve sang words of surrender, but then when the Lord asked them to give Him certain activities, television shows, music, friends, games, time, addictions, even thought patterns and mentalities, they’ve refused to sacrifice the things that led them to captivity in the first place. If we don’t pluck up the weed from the root, depression will always have an open door to come back. Sacrifice and surrender are the crucible for God’s Strength. If we are unwilling to change destructive behaviors, including entertaining negative thoughts, we will never see real freedom. Zechariah 4:6 (NKJV) says, “So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.” We all have been given the Spirit that lived in Christ, so when we learn to submit, we will have complete access to the strength He walked in.

Many want the benefits of serving God, but they don’t want to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain them. Matthew 16:24-26 (TPT) says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice and lose your lives for my glory, you will continually discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will forfeit what you try to keep. For even if you were to gain all the wealth and power of this world with everything it could offer you—at the cost of your own life—what good would that be? And what could be more valuable to you than your own soul?” One of the greatest issues of the church is a self-serving attitude. We are continually self-absorbed. In our selfishness, we love to make excuses as to why we can or can’t do the things that we know deep down are or aren’t right for us. Sadly, excuses and blaming others will only lead us to greater deception by adding strength to the very chains that hold us. That’s why this scripture says you’ll lose your life if you try to keep it for yourself! Most people would consider hate or fear as the opposite of love, but I’d like to submit that the absence of love is really just pride, which is really just self-idolatry. It's the very reason Lusifer was cast out of Heaven.

My sister-in-law Zoe and I had a conversation a month ago, and the words she spoke have resonated with me deeply every single day. She said that the Holy Spirit told her, “An idol is just anything we hesitate to give Him when He asks.” This definition is almost scary, because hesitation is still hesitation even if it’s just a millisecond. Ultimately, hesitation is a sign of distrust. When we hesitate, what we’re really saying is that we don’t know if we can trust that God has our best interest in mind with what He’s asking for. The truth of the matter is that, “He works all things for our good”, and that He has never had a selfish thought, because He is the very essence of agape love which is perfect selflessness. The truth is that there is no risk involved in trusting and loving Him because it is literally impossible for Him to be self-serving.

Shortly after this conversation, the Lord asked me to fast coffee for a period of time. Anyone who knows me, knows coffee is one of my favorite things. There’s rarely a moment when I don’t have cup of coffee in my hand. Before I could even fully think through what I was saying, I found myself telling God, “I have 3 children all under the age of 4 and a full time job doing ministry. I can’t give up coffee.” (Like He didn’t already know!) I even thought to myself, “I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink alcohol, I rarely eat junk, I hardly even take time for myself to shower regularly, because I spend all my time taking care of my family. Haven’t I sacrificed enough?” The Holy Spirit has a way of exposing things in us that we didn’t realize were there. I was clearly triggered to be getting so upset about the idea of sacrificing a simple beverage for my Lord and Savior who sacrifice his ENTIRE life for me.

I’m honestly embarrassed to even share this story, because it exposes an area of extreme immaturity in my life. But I knew my response was an indication, all the more, that I had turned coffee into an idol in my life. It had become my comfort blanket, every time I felt like things were out of my control, whether it was with potty training the girls or our schedule changing in a way I didn’t like, I’d run to my Kerig or a Starbucks for a pick-me-up the same way an alcoholic runs to a bar. Just because the substance doesn’t have an immediate conscience-altering consequence (such as drunkenness or a high), does not mean it’s not an addiction. I think we’d be shocked at the addiction in the church if the Lord were to expose the little things we run to instead of Him. For you it may not be coffee, but maybe it’s binge-watching Netflix, playing video games, eating junk food, selfishly hoarded money for self-preservation, or obsessing over affirmation received by posting selfies and other things on social media. The important thing is that we recognize the things that we’re running to, instead of Him.

The most disheartening part of the fast was that for those few days, I found myself thinking, “Where did my fruit of the Spirit go?” (As if I can even claim it as my own) My addiction had deceived me into thinking I was a pretty patient, loving, and gracious person, but what I found was that it was counterfeit fruit! As soon as I removed the substance, I was almost as irritated, and immature as I used to be. All week, I battled my flesh in extreme warfare. All I could think is if taking away something as simple as coffee affects me this much, then what other more serious things have I allowed to deceive myself! Sacrifice and fasting exposes the things we’ve depended on for strength beyond the Spirit of God. If you’re currently struggling with depression or any other issue, I encourage you to seek the Lord about what things you should fast as you prioritize Him above all else in your life. Real fruit lasts, and it cannot be taken by the circumstances of life. That includes the fruits of peace and joy!

“But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless. The cravings of the self-life are obvious: Sexual immorality, lustful thoughts, pornography, chasing after things instead of God, manipulating others, hatred of those who get in your way, senseless arguments, resentment when others are favored, temper tantrums, angry quarrels, only thinking of yourself, being in love with your own opinions, being envious of the blessings of others, murder, uncontrolled addictions, wild parties, and all other similar behavior. Haven’t I already warned you that those who use their “freedom” for these things will not inherit the kingdom realm of God! Keep in mind that we who belong to Jesus, the Anointed One, have already experienced crucifixion. For everything connected with our self-life was put to death on the cross and crucified with Messiah. We must live in the Holy Spirit and follow after him. So may we never be arrogant, or look down on another, for each of us is an original. We must forsake all jealousy that diminishes the value of others.”

Galatians 5:19-26 (TPT)

It’s time for the church to uproot lies, excuses and blame that aren’t producing real fruit. You’ll know the difference between the real and the counterfeit, because the real stuff is lasting regardless of external circumstances. Real joy and real peace exists in the place where we yield to His grace until it produces strength. I pray the Holy Spirit will become you’re best friend and companion, so much so that you feel His continual conviction to discern every lie and every truth in your life!