A Common Response

Series: Dealing With Depression and Doubt

Leslie Basham: Sometimes when we're facing tough circumstances, it doesn't mean God is punishing us.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: You know it's actually a mercy of God, perhaps a severe mercy, that He does allow us to move into times when we are removed from visible means of support--for our faith.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It's Friday, March 28.

Nancy is talking with us about depression and doubt. As we'll learn today, these two responses are quite common to our humanity. We often struggle with doubt and depression when we lose something or someone dear to us. But we're not doomed to live that way.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: I received an e-mail not too long ago from a friend who is a single woman, who's a missionary in one of the closed countries in Asia. And as part of that e-mail she said, "Singleness takes on a whole new light here. I'm not pining away for a husband, but there are times when I've wondered how I can go through this kind of life by myself.

"It's been a new experience for me to learn to know God's gentle, comforting presence when there are literally no other people or resources to turn to. It was always so easy and natural to turn to someone--anyone---back at home for comfort when I was sad or angry or whatever. But now I have no other choice but to go to Him."

I don't know about you but I don't like being in that position. But, you know, that's a great place to be. That's the best place to be. God loves to put us in a place where we cannot make it apart from Him.

And I live much of my life--and probably need to live more of my life--just keenly aware that, if God does not intervene on my behalf, I can't do it. I don't like feeling desperate. I don't. I want to put myself in an easier place in life where I can manage, where I can feel like I can keep my head above water. But God loves to put us in a place where we cannot make it. We know we can't make it without Him.

We're looking this week at a pair of psalms, Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 where the psalmist, and we think it was probably David who wrote these psalms, describes the condition that he's in when he starts to write these psalms.

We talked yesterday about how He was experiencing a time of drought, dryness, desert-time and then also how He was experiencing the sensation of I'm drowning! I don't think I'm going to survive this.

He talks about the waterfalls, the waterspouts of God that are coming down from heaven upon his little boat out there in this great big ocean. We can relate, all of us, to either seasons of grief in our lives or seasons where the tasks and just the living of life seemed so overwhelming that we thought we couldn't make it.

Now I want to have us look today into these psalms and see how David responded to that sense of drought and drowning. And then, later in this series, we'll see the supernatural responses and the choices David made to respond God's way.

But there were two natural responses that we all have in seasons of drought or drowning. And these responses are natural, not only to this psalmist but to us.

First we see that there was a response of depression. Depression. His soul is cast down.

And you see that in verse 5, in verse 6, in verse 11 and then in the last verse of chapter 43 as well, where he says, "My soul is cast down." The marginal reading there in my Bible says literally "bowed down."

And you just see a man who has the weight of the world on his shoulders--or so he thinks. But it's not just his shoulders. You know, it's one thing to carry a heavy load on your back; it's another thing to feel that your soul is carrying a load that is just too great.

And I think one of the most common things I sense among women today is that their soul is cast down. Their spirit is heavy. They're bowed down; they're weighed down.

Here's a man who is discouraged. He's depressed. And you see in these psalms a number of the symptoms of depression. He's emotionally distraught. He can't sleep at night. There's a loss of appetite. The cloud just won't lift.

Some of you know exactly what that's like. You relate when the psalmist says in verse 3, "My tears have been my food day and night." I just can't stop crying. I mean, life is just too heavy. It's weighing me down. He's really ultimately grieving the loss of communion and intimate fellowship with God. So there's this depression.

And then there's a struggle with doubt. That's another natural response to times of drought and times of feeling that we're drowning--and that's to doubt--to doubt ourselves, to doubt God, to doubt others, to doubt everything that we maybe were so sure of.

I can remember after one major season of loss and grief in my own life, there was a period where I honestly doubted almost everything that I had been so sure of in relation to my faith since I was a little girl. And all of a sudden it felt like it was all up in the air, all up for grabs.

And the psalmist says to himself in verse 5, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?" That's the depression. Then he says, "Why are you disquieted within me?" He speaks to his soul. "Why are you disquieted within me?" That's the doubt.

That word disquieted, one commentator says, "You could say that word is 'tumultuated.'" Now that's not an everyday word that we would use. But you get the picture. "Why are you tumultuated within me?" It pictures the tossing, the turning of this tempestuous sea and the surging waves, not only outside his life but even harder within his heart. He's plagued with questions, with doubts.

In between these two psalms, Psalms 42 and 43, there are thirteen questions. Ten of them are the question, "Why?" "Why?" He asks himself; he asks God, "Why?" There are many unresolved questions in his mind, things that don't make sense.

Do you know why? Because he's down on this little ocean, in this little boat, he can't see the big picture. All he sees are the waves and the water pouring in his boat. He can't see what God sees.

And that's how he's going to encourage and counsel his heart as we move into this psalm--by getting out of his own perspective and getting into a little bit of God's perspective but apart from that perspective that comes from God, he's experiencing depression and doubt.

Now, humanly speaking, this man has good reason to be depressed and to doubt. There's a lot going on around him that really is stormy and troubling. Let's talk about some of those reasons that surface in this psalm.

The first one is that he has found himself in a place where he has been removed from the place of worship and from the people of God. The psalmist, probably David, is far removed from the place where he always used to go to worship God, Jerusalem.

And now he's living, according to verse 6, in the northern part of Palestine. There are some references there to the"¦he says, "I will remember you from the land of Jordan, from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar." These are places that are in the northern part of Palestine.

Now, where is Jerusalem? It's in the southern part of Palestine, isn't it! For some reason he's had to leave and he's not able to make the pilgrimage to the house of the Lord.

He's been forced to leave the place where he was accustomed to meeting with God and he's not able to be with other believers who worship God. He's struggling with how to maintain an intimate relationship with God--when there are no visible means of support.

It's my missionary friend saying, "I'm out here on this mission field. I know I'm here because God put me here, but it's lonely." This gal comes from a strong evangelical church where there's lots of fellowship and great teaching of the Word, and now she's in a place where she has very little of that.

And we're accustomed to having our church, our fellowship, our small groups. I wonder if sometimes we take those for granted--the privilege that it is for most of us to have around us a means of support for our faith. But, you know, we do experience times when some of that is taken away. And then we are challenged in our faith.

Maybe you work in a place that's a really ungodly environment. And when you're there, you feel like you are just totally separated from all means of grace. You think, "How do I stay connected to God in this environment where people swear, where there's filthy language, where they just have no fear of the Lord. It's hard.

Maybe you come from an unsaved family and there are no believers in your family, and you go home to family gatherings and you feel so cut off from the things of God. You say, "How do I spend holidays with this family who has no concept of spiritual things and yet try and keep a close relationship with the Lord myself?"

Maybe you're at a season of your life where you're in your home with a lot of little children. And you feel kind of cut off. There are days when you think that, If I could just talk with a grownup! Just have some meaningful adult conversation and for you, this is a season of life where there, perhaps, isn't much of that.

Matthew Henry says that sometimes God teaches us effectually to know the worth of mercies by the want or the lack of them. And He whets our appetite for the means of grace by cutting us short in those means.

You know, it's actually a mercy of God that He does allow us to move into times where we are removed from visible means of support for our faith because, once again, that may be the time and the place when we discover the nearness and the presence and the reality of our Heavenly Father in a way we did not realize to that same extent. We had too many other props and crutches and helps around us.

"Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance."

Leslie Basham: Doubt and depression: two things that many of us know far too well. It's no sin to feel these things but they can lead us into sinful, destructive behavior.

And that's why we're airing these programs--to help you avoid the potential danger that doubt and depression often bring on. But we need more than an occasional word of encouragement. We need constant help. What could be better than having Scripture, the Word of God, close by?

Reading, memorizing and meditating on select passages of the Bible can help us fight against the thoughts and feelings that so often defeat us. That's why we hope you'll pick up a copy of a book called God's Promises for Your Every Need.

This leather-bound book is filled with 2,000 Scripture verses and is indexed by topic for quick and easy reference. It's a great tool to have on hand in times of doubt or simply when you need a word of truth to encourage your heart.

You can order a copy for a suggested donation of $15 by calling 1‑800‑569‑5959.  Or visit ReviveOurHearts.com. And let me tell you about a way you can spread encouragement to others, by making a financial contribution to Revive Our Hearts. You'll allow us to continue providing biblical counsel to women in desperate circumstances.

You can send your gift to Revive Our Hearts. On Monday we'll learn how to respond when we feel abandoned. And I hope you can be back. Now here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Thank You, thank You, Father, for loving us enough to push us out of our comfortable nests, push us out into those stormy seas at times and to put us in a place where we're more keenly aware of how empty we are apart from You and how great is our need for You.

So, why do I fear, why do I dread being out on that sea, feeling so alone at times? The nearness of God is my greatest good. And we give You thanks for Your presence is very real, even when all other visible means of support have been taken away.

You are God and You are near. So we hope in You and by faith we say that we will yet praise You for the help of Your countenance. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Leslie Basham: Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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