YOU ARE NOT DEPRESSED! – A MESSAGE TO THE STRUGGLING YOUNG SAINT
Dear Young Saint,
I am happy as I write this letter to you. I am also a notch happier because this letter is especially to myself because I know we are in the same stage of life and we are all suffering the same feat.
Young Saint I want you to know I fully understand what you’re going through. As someone who has cried out to God not once or even thrice to take his life, I know very well how crippling depression can be. I know that feeling of worthlessness and uselessness that taints your days. I know those days when it seems like the sky is grey and the sun was not shining and the stars also refused to come out because I’ve been there.
But Young Saint, I have come to notice that we are not actually depressed. I can almost hear your snicker here and you’re probably thinking this is one of those “How to avoid depression posts” but hear me out please.
The person who makes you believe is the same slippery dragon serpent. He made our first ancestors believe God was hiding knowledge from them in a fruit and he is the same person who tells you that you are depressed. You’re probably thinking “Yes, Blame the devil for everything. Why would he want to do that?”
The answer is quite simple: to steal your joy.
You see Young Saint we were created by God to bring God glory and praise him. When we do this we are satisfied and happy and when we are happy we are joyful and in our happiness, God is glorified. But the serpent doesn’t want us to be happy as much as he doesn’t want God to be glorified so he never fails to bring to our notice all the things that aren’t working out in our lives at any point in time. His mode of operation is simple. When he makes you un-content and clouds your vision with the things you don’t have yet or are going wrong, you become unhappy and unjoyful and hence cannot glorify God – Instead it makes you antagonistic towards God. When you aren’t happy, you don’t have joy and when you aren’t joyful you are weak because “The Joy of the lord is your strength”. When you are joy-less and strength-deprived, you can no longer go out to do the good works God has designed for you to do in Christ Jesus and hence you cannot bring God glory neither can you make progress in your life.
You see it’s a stalemate. This is what our enemy the serpent is always doing. He wants to keep you in a depressed state so you become useless. You end up not doing things that will make you or God happy. He keeps pushing you more and more into a hole of darkness till he squeezes the life out of you and if you are not careful, you make your transit to be with him easier by committing suicide.
Dear Young Saint, now that we know how the serpent works, how do we avoid his traps? By finding our identity and worth in Christ and being on the offensive.
Young Saint, if you didn’t know, we are soldiers in a fierce battle – the most serious battle. This battle isn’t against blood and flesh but powers and principalities in the high places. Hence we have to fight the deceiver before he deceives us to lethargy and advances against the kingdom of heaven. How do you fight? By wearing the armor of Christ. We kit up fully with the belt of truth tucked around our waists, the breastplates of righteousness on our chests, the gospel of peace ready on our feet, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit – the word of God. We cling to the true promises of God found throughout the bible like the promise never to leave nor forsake us and the promise to work everything – even trouble hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword and anything you might be going through (negligence, personality crisis, daddy and/or mommy issues, *inserts problem*) for your good. We walk around with the gospel of peace, we block the enemies’ lies with the shield of faith and strike back with the word of God. We tell him we are not depressed and tell him who God says we are in his word – foreknown, predestined, called, justified and glorified. We tell him we are Gods children and our father is committed to our good.
Finally Young Saint I must inform you that you won’t do this one day or for one week and then the serpent will retreat. The serpent is never idle – he is always actively working and creatively seeking new ways to deprive you of your joy and impede you from thriving in God’s presence. Like soldiers on the battle field, you must not retire but repeatedly keep fighting the serpent and one day in heaven - where there will be no trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword or anything else you might be going through – we will look back and chant the victors cry because we would have triumphed over the serpent once and for all!
