Weary with groaning

Scripture does not hide its sufferers from us, and it does not airbrush their despair. David floods his bed with tears, weary to the bone with his own groaning, his eye wasting away from grief. Paul, of all people, tells the Corinthians with startling candor that he was weighed down beyond his strength, so crushed that he despaired even of life. These are not the words of weak men or faithless ones; they are among the strongest believers who ever lived, and the darkness fell on them anyway. Centuries later the great London preacher Charles Spurgeon would write openly about the seasons when a crushing heaviness descended on him for no reason he could name, leaving him barely able to go on, even at the height of his ministry. He refused to pretend it away or treat it as a secret sin. Depression is one of the forms the wilderness can take, and it is not a verdict on your faith. The God of the Bible does not stand at arm's length from the brokenhearted, waiting for them to cheer up before He draws near. He is near to them. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Scripture meets this darkness with honesty, never with shame.

We do real harm when we tell the depressed that their darkness is a failure of faith or a hidden sin dragging them down. It is not the testimony of Scripture, where psalmists and apostles go down into the pit and cry out from the bottom of it, and are not rebuked for being there. Depression is not unbelief. It is a weight that has fallen on saints far stronger than you or me, and the proof is written into the holy book itself. So if you are in it now, hear two things together, and let neither cancel the other. The first is that you are not alone and you are not condemned; the darkness is survivable, and it is shared by people whose faith no one would question. The second is that there is no shame in reaching for help, for the hand of a friend, a pastor, a doctor, the ordinary means God uses to carry His people through. Crying out and seeking help are not opposites of faith; they are often how faith survives the night.