Why Are You Depressed?

"Why are you downcast O' my soul? And why are you so disturbed within me?"

(Psalm 42:11)

Staggering, are the statistics of the untold millions of people who suffer from depression. 

And many people suffer from 'clinical' depression or mental illnesses, of which, I have very limited understanding.

But while I don't pretend to be a psychologist, I can speak from long, painful, personal experience of what caused my own depression—and that is an inordinate self-focus and a willful self-isolation.

My heart truly goes out to anyone who is suffering from the painful loneliness of depression, and I am not without compassion. But what I have had to personally learn the hard way over the last forty or more years, is that I brought this on myself.

How?

By my sitting around constantly wallowing in my own self-imposed self-pity and isolation. By putting all of my focus on me. 

"What about me?" 

My heart and my intent is not to be insensitive, but to offer the only solution that I have learned over time. 

Believe me—I know all too well from personal experience that loneliness and depression is perhaps the most painful experience in the human existence. 

Again, speaking solely from my own life experience in this area, I have found that the worst place to be, is sitting by yourself in an empty house or apartment, wondering why no one is calling you, or inviting you out to lunch, or to go have coffee, etc.

The more that you isolate yourself from others, the more the enemy of your soul will pour his gasoline on the fire of your self-pity. "Nobody loves ME!"  "Nobody wants to spend time with ME!" "Nobody cares about ME!" The intent of the enemy of your soul is to isolate you, taking your focus off of God, and instead, do everything he can to try to get you to feel sorry for yourself.

And so you isolate yourself even more, shutting yourself off from the world.

Do you see the dangerous cycle that your self-pity perpetuates?

You have to choose to get off that merry-go-round of self-loathing and self-absorption.

"How can I possibly do that?"

Look at the second half of Psalm 42:11. Speaking to his own disquieted soul, the writer of this Psalm admonishes himself to:

"Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him—my Savior and my God."

You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps and put on a happy face. 

That's an illusion.

But what you can do, is start by exercising an act of your own free will—crying out to God—placing all of your hope in Him—asking Him to lift you up out of the self-imposed darkness of depression that you have chosen to lie down in. You have to confess to Him that your self-absorption is actually willful self-idolatry.

You have to be willing to confess to God that you have chosen to wallow in your own self-pity.

But I promise you, that if you will do these things—crying out to God—asking Him to lift you up—confessing your sin of self-idolatry to Him—He will lift you up out the pit of your self-imposed, self-pity. 

And then He will help you to turn your eyes off of yourself and off of your problems, and He will absolutely bless you by showing you people all around you who need His love, mercy and encouragement.

Jesus said: 

"The Son of Man did come to be served—but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many."

It truly is far better to give than to receive.

Over the years, I have endured several long periods of unemployment where I let myself get into a pattern of behavior where I would eventually give up hope of finding a job. And then I would slowly give up even looking for a job. Soon, I would isolate myself and sit around feeling sorry for myself and depressed about the whole situation. 

And because I would isolate myself from everyone around me—any thought of other people who might need God's love, mercy and encouragement were not even on my radar—because I was so self-absorbed.

Putting yourself into the "Poor Me" cycle, is a guaranteed downward spiral into self-destruction.

This kind of self-absorbed life is not God's will for you at all.

When the Prophet Elijah ran away and hid in a cave, wallowing in his own faithlessness, fear and self-absorption, God came to him and said, 

"What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:9)

Just like He did with Elijah when he hid himself in self-absorbed isolation, God is calling you out of your self-imposed cave of isolation and self-pity.

God has a purpose and a calling for your life. And that purpose is to worship and glorify Him. And then to love and serve others—not wallowing in self-absorption, self-pity and self-isolation.

Just as the Psalmist did, you and I need to speak to our souls and admonish ourselves with these words:

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him—my Savior and my God!"

—God is Love, and Love Never Fails.