Thinking biblically about depression, part II

We are working our way through our study on believers experiencing depression, and our passages are Psalm 42 and 43. 

Today, our next question is "if I cannot change these circumstances, does God want me to change my attitude?"  Here is the basis for this question: three different times, the psalmist is pretty aggressive in confronting himself to deal with his despair. He wants to regain that special sense of God's presence. He's looked at his circumstances and he hasn't seen a way to change them on his own. He's determined, then, to change his focus. Instead of focusing on himself, or on his overwhelming situation, he decides the best thing to do is to focus on God.

Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. (Psalm 42:8)

O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. (Psalm 43:3)

When he does this, his circumstances aren't suddenly changed, but his attitude has. He is intentionally thinking about God and His light and truth. Our New Testament tells us:

Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

Rejoice evermore. (I Thessalonians 5:16) 

I'm here to tell you, when our circumstances are overwhelming, we don't really have the strength to do that. The only way to obey those commands sincerely is to change our attitude by changing our focus from self to awesome Creator.

Lastly, is God in sovereign control of this situation? What is He trying to teach us? Well, obviously, God is sovereign even over the evil things that happen in this world. And no one can thwart His purpose. No one can stand in the way of His plans, and they can unknowingly be a part of His plan:

For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. (Acts 4:27-28)

But let's be honest here. It's easy to doubt or to forget that He is sovereign when we are overwhelmed by our trials.  We need to follow the psalmist' example when he calls the waves that were crashing over him "your breakers and your waves." (Psalm 42:7)

It was evil men who were persecuting him, mocking him, and oppressing him, but the psalmist knows that God has them in His plan, and that He has sent the trial for His own purpose.

I have heard believers who say that God didn't cause a trial, but that He allowed it. It's kinda like they are making excuses for our almighty Father! Or they will blame Satan, as if he sneaked up while God was snoozing! 

But the Bible is clear that trials may come from the Lord for our benefit:

 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)

It's our human side showing when we think, "How can a good God bring these crises into the lives of His children?" That's our flesh talking. Our not-so-spiritual side. We are blind to the extent of our own pride, thinking we can understand God and tell Him what to do. We are dull as to how much we actually love this world. So, the Lord in loving mercy sends trials to teach us not to trust in ourselves. 

He wants us to learn to trust in Him alone.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,[a] about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (II Corinthians 1:8-9)

We will finish our study of how to respond to (and deal with) depression next week.