Home Pastors Articles for Pastors Confront the Whispering Lies of Depression

Confront the Whispering Lies of Depression

The momentum of a few true statements leads us to a dangerously false conclusion. Before we know it, we find ourselves listening to a litany of lies.

“It’s all lost.” False.

“My family will never change.” False.

“It’s never going to get any better.” False.

“There’s no one who cares about me.” False.

Your depressed self may be whispering these conclusions to you, but when it does, you need to stop listening to them. As Jared Wilson says in Gospel Wakefulness, “you must defy your depressed self.”

We must stop listening, and start talking. We must preach the gospel over our lives, without mumbling, being long-winded if we have to: “I am not alone; Gethsemane shows me that. There is someone who cares for me; the cross proves that. My future is not dim; the resurrection declares that.”

We must tell our depression that its days are numbered, so that even if it lasts until our dying breath, it will be vanquished for all eternity while we escape to the everlasting joy of the Father’s presence.

So even if you never get over it, it’s still not permanent.

In essence, this is what God tells Elijah—that he has a plan beyond anything Elijah has considered. Elijah feels like his efforts have failed and are wasted. But they were not.

Perhaps you feel like many of your acts have failed and have wasted. But in the end, when we see all things clearly, we will realize that there was no wasted act of faithfulness, nothing done in Jesus’ name that could ever be called “wasted.” In every cross of pain and suffering and deprivation you go through in faith, God works the miracle of the resurrection.

So with the Apostle Paul, we can say to our soul, “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58).