| Is Your God Too Small? | | 27/10/08 Joel Virgo writes: This is an analysis of some text-message questions, focussed on the topic of God's Sovereignty, along with book recommendations.
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| Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Religion versus Wisdom | | 27/10/09 Joel Virgo writes: Solomon has been warning us about what is valuable – but more about what is not. Anything we expect to provide meaning for our lives 'under the sun' is going to disappoint us in the end if we are honest about it.
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| Ecclesiastes 2: The Pursuit of Happiness. | | 06/10/08 Joel Virgo writes: In the early chapters of this ancient but resonant book Solomon gives us a full-on report on life from a secular perspective, or 'under the sun', to use his phrase. A secular worldview is not limited to the atheist.
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Psalm 42 and 43: God and Depression. [Part 1]
This last season at CCK we’ve been looking (amongst other things) at the Psalms in a study entitled Jesus’ Songbook. We’ve touched on 10 of them so far – and we’ll do Psalm 51 on September 7 to close the series.
The Psalms have given me a chance to look closely at the bible way to relate to God in the real world of joy, frustration, excitement, setback, delay, delight, injustice, disappointment and shame.
I learned a lot from doing Psalm 42 (and 43) this last weekend. It throws light on the theme of depression. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones (whose books are all recommended without exception) preached a series of messages on this subject back in the 1950’s. They were published as the book Spiritual Depression shortly after. This quickly became one of the biggest selling Christian books of the century.
Tells you something…
The writer of this Psalm is a musician and leader in the Jerusalem temple worship. Somehow, though, he has been cut off from his home, his friends and his occupation. And being away from the temple – for him – is being away from God. So he pens a song to express his grief.
His depression has 3 causes.
1. He’s lost his sense of God
He starves without the presence of God – which used to be the hallmark of his life as a full-time temple servant. His life is nothing without it – in the same way that life is nothing without water.
This isn’t because he is unusual – a holy man. He’s like you and me. The only difference is he knows what he’s craving. People starve, crave. We are born starving. But we tend to refuse to feed on the thing that’s designed to satisfy our thirst – God.
The difficulty for Christians is when we face seasons when God seems to hide His face. It is completely normal for believers to encounter times of spiritual drought, during which our awareness of God’s smile seems to dwindle. This can be a shock to new Christians. It seems to be, for many, a reason to quit. God seems distant – or even somehow ‘unreal’. But these are the seasons when we are growing up fastest.
They are also seasons when our hearts are tested. There’s a verse in 2 Chronicles which gives it away. It says that God ‘left’ King Hezekiah ‘to see what was in his heart’…
We mustn’t be surprised by such seasons – but prepared for them. And in Psalm 42 we have a helpful resource for such a day.
2. He’s lost his community.
The writer is estranged from his home, his normal surroundings, his own culture and his normal community. He has lost the people with whom he had belonged. This is also a very serious loss. We cannot truly thrive without people around us who ‘get’ us and amongst whom we fit.
No one is exempt from this. We are made in God’s image and are therefore made for community (God being a community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit). Just as it is in God’s nature to thrive in partnership, so it is with us. The first thing the Bible records God disapproving of is human isolation: It is not good for man to be alone… (Genesis 2).
We see this even in the life of Jesus who, as the God-man showed a true commitment to community – and even a level of grief when this longing (for mutual companionship and life sharing) was unfulfilled.
But there is a big lesson from Jesus’ example here. Though he was surrounded by people who struggled to grasp him and his mission despite his efforts, he persisted and made it work. It’s often necessary for us to do the same. We can find ourselves in a new situation – new church, new location, same church but new people… and the disruption can leave us lonely, maybe even undervalued. There’s a choice right there. Close yourself off and avoid connection with people, or be like Jesus, push through and make it work. In his case he built so well and worked so hard with his new community that he said at the last supper how much he had been looking forward to sharing it with them. Even in Gethsemane, his loneliest darkest time, he asked for his dearest friends to stick as close as possible. If Jesus needed true community, so do I – and so do you.
3. He lost his job.
This man was a musician in the temple courts and played a vital role in major festivals. The sons of Korah had a very dignified place. And this son of Korah had lost his. At the end of the day losing your job, your position, or even your specific role in the local church can massively affect your sense of purpose. This is just as serious as losing community and can cause depression.
Men and women were given roles – calling, vocation, destiny – at the point of creation (Genesis 1.28-30). At his gut man wants to be doing the thing he is good at. It is pretty disorientating to be alienated from the thing you know you do well.
These three seismic shifts in the Psalmists life have left him bewildered and broken. He is ‘cast down’ and ‘in turmoil’…
So how does he deal with it? (because he deals with it very well…) |
Joel Virgo, 25/07/2008 |
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