Yup, we need to be depressed now and then. It's like stress. We need good stress to perk us up and goad us to peak performance. What's a no-no is distress. You don't need it one bit. Same with over depression. But believe it or not, depression has its positive uses, says Dr, Anderson Thomson. [Image above from Mathew W. Henry, Unsplash].
Thomson is assistant director of the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction, University of Virginia in Charlottesville. If you can't believe what he said, he simplifies it further: "One way to think about it is the natural problem-solving capacities of depression,” he explains, saying depression helps you focus on your issues and somehow solve them.
It's like pain. Without it you can't know there's a health problem inside you. We hate pain but it actually warns us of something dangerously lurking somewhere in our bodies. Likewise, "Depression tells you there’s a problem, tells you where the problem is, stops business as usual, and signals others that you are in distress,” according to Thomson.
Depression is given a bad name today and with good reason. A lot of people fall easy prey to it once it strikes. So we're often warned of its symptoms so we could deal with it pronto--or seek help. But everything allowed by God is for a good purpose. Even depression. When godly men in the bible were desperate and depressed, they went closer to God.
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. [Psalm 42]Depression magnifies hopelessness and "can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home," says the American Psychiatric Association. It calls it a "serious medical illness." In some ways, God uses illnesses (or allows them) to strengthen our immune system once it learns how to fight the disease. So we become immune to it. The body can fight the virus better the next time and is sure to win. Illnesses, for some mysterious reasons, also helps us do God's will. Paul said:
As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, [Galatians 4.13]When depressed, we tend to narrow down our activities, stay aloof, isolate ourselves, feel deep sadness and emptiness for days and even weeks. God allows this to hedge us in and get our attention a hundred percent. He wants us to put off everything and seek him. I learned this during my bout with depression in my college days when I felt the urge to lock myself in my room, feel depressed and hopeless for months, losing appetite for life and contemplating on dying--how it'd be like ending it all--and even death itself--what would happen after I die?
I knew I was saved from sins and hell through Jesus Christ, but I wondered, what would it be really like right after you die? I felt so close to death then.
But also in those times of loneliness and depression, I desperately sought God. There was almost nothing I did but to seek him and grope for answers from him. Then he gave me enlightenment and I came out of the ordeal stronger, with a better spiritual "immune system."
When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. 23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. [Psalm 73.21-24]Depression is a warning that something is terribly amiss in our lives and should be addressed pronto. God allows this so we can have quality moments alone to look deeper inside us--so we can realize, on a higher level and deeper consciousness--that HE alone is God and He alone is our Life.
Are you depressed? It's time for you to seek God deeper. You may be at the threshold of a powerful breakthrough where you come out of the agony stronger and wiser.
