The question was recently posed amongst a group of friends whether our depressions and anxieties are sinister voices that hail from a spiritual realm or are but the echo of our own inner cynic.
I rarely feel the need to opine on such things, but it just so happens that I have been pondering the same line of thought over the past few months myself.
I don't have the ability or desire to speak definitively, but wouldn't mind joining the conversation.
Here's what I've got so far :
Not that long ago, I realized something helpful: every thing a particular human enemy was saying aloud to me was exactly what a spiritual force bent on destruction would say if given a human voice.
This person was close enough to know what was important to me and where I was most prone, so that is where they aimed their lashing tongue.
I came to believe that, because this person was not yielded to kindness, they had offered themselves as an open tap for discouragement.
One name used for a spiritual force bent on destruction is The Father of Lies. I began to understand why. A lie so well fashioned it appears to be truth, conceived by a destructive spirit - human or otherwise- and birthed from lips of flesh and blood.
When I took the time - and courage- to examine my attacker's words closely, I could see the sloppy seams holding those lies together. In the dark, they looked like authentic claims, but held to the Light, my identity in Christ could be seen underneath. I was not a mistake, or the worst mom ever or even a fake.
I also realized that I tended to replay those comments internally and let them re-surface long after they had been identified as counterfeit.
In this way, I was agreeing with the lies more than I was embracing truth.
I believe that, spiritually speaking, we have similarly revealed our vulnerabilities by yielding to the same sins and schemes repeatedly over the course of our lives.
Just like various fish prefer different baits and environments, some of us prefer greed to gluttony, while others find gloom tastier than gossip for digesting our hooks.
We have revealed our preferences and vulnerabilities to any who can watch, and like the stain on a carpet that keeps coming back, sadly, I believe we also harbor pet tendencies within ourselves, too. Including the choice to embrace mock truths.
Those of us who routinely entertain bleak voices may find that they are near because we were born this way - that we are Siamese twins with a seething head. We may have a valid genetic excuse why discouraging voices echo longer and louder in our mind's ear. But we aren't written an excuse to sit on the bleachers. We are all born afflicted in various ways and we must all run the race according to the same instructions:
Focus on what is good, and true and lovely. Build each other up. Sing songs of joy. Be thankful. Pray continually.
~*~
Several months back, while standing in line at the bank to take care of some complicated domestic affairs and desperate for a glimpse of understanding about how things can be allowed to go so terribly awry when we believe our intentions are good, I opened the Bible app on my phone. I didn't choose a book or search a keyword, I just looked down and started reading until my turn at the teller arrived. (I Samuel 18)
Here's what caught my attention:
"The next day an ugly mood was sent by God to afflict Saul, who became quite beside himself, raving..." (backstory: Saul got the results he thought God wanted but not the way God prescribed... he was angry that God rejected his offering. I have been guilty of this same kind of flawed thinking...)
Other translations say "a black mood" "a tormenting spirit" and "an evil spirit" but the most curious phrase to me was "sent by God"
Many scholars agree that "allowed by God" is a fair translation of that phrase, as well as an understanding that the word "spirit" used here can apply to one's own inner psyche.
This black mood caused Saul to think within himself that he would like to pin David to the wall when Oopsie! his spear flies out of his hand and David ducks just in time.
Saul verbally commits not to harm David... until the next 'black mood' arrives special delivery, postage paid and once again attributed to God.
The next chapters devolve into a fully involved man hunt and murder scheme involving that age old trick of placing a dummy with goat's hair in one's bed as a decoy. Works every time!
Did God send a murderous spirit upon Saul?
Or - did He turn Saul over to his (Saul's) own self centered counsel ?
Throughout the Bible, God takes credit for some pretty interesting things.
We are told in both Isaiah 45 and Romans 9 that a smart pot doesn't argue with the Potter about the way it is made.
Our ways are not - will never be- His ways.
Which lands us now on the slippery slope "If I'm chronically depressed, has God turned me over to a futile mind? "
I believe the answer is ultimately a choice we must make.
If we go back into Samuel 19 and read the commitment that Saul made concerning David's life, we see that he made David's survival contingent upon God's existence: "As surely as the Lord lives, so will David."
Saul reached a place where the reality of God no longer took priority over his (Saul's) actions and desires.
David himself knew what it was to be downcast in his soul. He moaned to the Lord, he cried and melted and wasted away quite routinely throughout the Psalms.
In contrast, when a 'black mood' enveloped David, he remembered God was above him and cast his eyes upward with hope and expectation.
~*~
Timely as Big Ben, I encountered my final example this week.
I'd been experiencing sleeplessness over the past week, compounded by falling into a bad routine of staying up into the wee hours and rising later than I wished. It is a vicious cycle, a pet tendency I harbor myself.
And, this particular week, I was at the notch in my personal anxiety cycle where sleep was crucial.
And so, I tried to spiritualize something that was as much the result of bad physical habits as it was the result of being anxious.
I prayed for a good night's sleep, restorative rest and the ability to wake early enough to get a lot done. These things did not come to pass. And here is what I heard down in my heart: "In vain you get up early and stay up late, working hard to have enough food— yes, he gives sleep to the one he loves" (Psalm 127)
Well! There was all the proof I needed - right there in the Bible. God doesn't really love me. If He did, He would grant me sleep.
I don't know about you, but the notion that I've been rejected by the 'God who rejects no one' wasn't an effective meditation for getting more rest.
I should have looked more closely at the seams. And I should have looked up the verse I was using to trod myself lower. Scripture doesn't trod on us where it doesn't also offer to restore our hope.
I've been steeped in 'knowing' this stuff so long, it is embarrassing to admit how silly my thinking can get. How much I really don't know, despite the many years of hearing and reading and seeking to know.
But that's sometimes the trick isn't it?
Fatigue causes us to miss or forget the small but essential details.
I should have remembered that as surely as the Lord lives, so do I. And as He lives, He is good, merciful, loving, restorative, and kind. But I didn't remember... until half-past dark o'clock in the morning.
Somewhere in the twilight, I turned the Bible app on audio as I often do to try and get back to sleep. I like that I can set a timer and not kill my phone's battery. The soothing narrator read "For the second test, the devil took Jesus to the Holy City and sat Him on top of the temple and said "Since you are God's son, jump." The devil goaded Him by quoting Psalm 91:'He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won't so much as stub your toe on a stone.'
Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: "Don't you dare test the Lord your God." (Matthew 4)
Oh, yeah.
Scripture can be twisted.
I had lost sight of that.
God allowed even Jesus to be goaded by the voice of malevolence - a voice quoting Scripture, no less; not once, but three times in this passage.
Not unlike Paul's plea for thorn removal, and David's many entreaties for rescue. Those who are routinely goaded need not think ourselves downcast nor outcast any more than the examples set before us in the Chronicles of the Downcast (Whose Faces Were Turned to the Light.)
Jesus modeled the importance of a steady diet of truth to combat those destructive voices.
It wasn't just memorizing passages from Deuteronomy that helped, it was in knowing how to apply them.
The passage in Psalm 91 is a promise that God will protect, that He will save and redeem if we will draw near to Him and get to know Him. The temptation to claim God's promise in another context is the same temptation Saul had been presented with.
Jesus saw the fallacy of telling God "If you love me, you'll stop this from hurting me" was twisting a promise of relationship with Him into one of selfish gain.
After talking to my 'AbbaFather' about what a silly goose I can be, I slept. And the next night, I went to bed at a decent time. Both approaches were called for and effective.
Later, I re-read the verse in context that I had allowed to twist me out of right thinking. (A rule of thumb I know but was too tired and cranky to practice and see where it got me? )
Indeed, He gives rest to those He loves. The sentiment is couched between a warning against building one's life without Him and the admonition that children - those adorable creatures known for waking us up all through the night - are a gift from Him. In context, we can go to bed, even when there is a lot to be done - or thought about- because He is in control, not us. And we can rest when we have purposed to let Him remain in control.
Whether we're on the job site all day working on our legacy, or burning the midnight oil with a colicky, silly-goose baby, we don't have to go it alone.
God never sleeps.
He stays up with His children, helping us with our science projects and telling us true bedtime stories of heroic love and rescue. He rises early with us and is glorified in our faithful decisions both large and small. And that's a far cry from leaving us out in the cold.
~*~
To my little band of sometimes-suicidal friends,
And also to the ones who wrestle with blue every now and again,
it may seem cliche to say "Turn to the Power-That-Is-Greater-Than-You-And-I." when those dark clouds roll in... but so is jumping, cutting or saying goodbye. And how very melodramatic we can be, no?
Here's what I realized that day in the bank, and it is a theme I've been on the lookout for ever since: In whatever form or realm God sent the black mood, He did so already at work on "the rest of the story" as Mr. Harvey used to say.
He used the black mood to bring David into the palace, playing his harp.
David's musical talent was also sent by God.
(I wonder if David's downcast spirit was what we think of as artistic sensitivity these days?)
Both men experienced downcast moods and responded differently.
God weaves their responses with ours into an epic tapestry where we are all given a scarlet thread.
Hang on to it. (please)
Whether the speakers that discourage us are internal, external or a mixture of both, turning the truth up drowns them out.
We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
What's your story? What has been true and good and lovely so far?
Have we not been redeemed?
Was there ever been a moment worth celebrating in our lives?
Remembering aloud together helps us spot those seams.
I love you all and hope you stick around for a long time.
