John Piper | All is Well

Go to the best school you can. Get the job that makes the most money possible. Retire early. Spend the rest of your life “Doing what you want to do”—–collecting antiques, going on cruises, woodworking.

None of these things are bad in and of themselves. But is that all life is intended to be? Is that the way God designed living our life here on earth to look like?

John Piper, in the book Don’t Waste Your Life, takes issue with the prevailing thoughts that life is primarily for our enjoyment. Instead, Piper pleads with his readers to “Make much of God”; that the joy that doing so creates, as well as the grace that we don’t deserve, should lead the believer to be willing to risk all for Christ.

I was personally very taken by the story related in this book about Adinoram Judson, who, with his young bride, left the United States to serve God in Burma, only returning one time. That sort of risk of life and wealth and the Western definition of (pseudo)-“happiness” and satisfaction seems to carry with it the kind of lasting contentedness that acknowledges that we are but sojourners in this life on earth-that our home is not here but eternally with God our father.

In reading this book, I have been reminded of a verse that has come to have a great deal of meaning to me personally. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 4:17-18:

17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

But until that day when the eternal weight of glory is realized and attained, we are to live in this world. But will our time here be wasted in vain pursuits? In gaining all the “glory” we can gain here on this earth? All the money, the cars, the vacations? Piper urges his readers to evaluate their lives, to give thought to what really matters. To realize that we may be called to give everything–including our lives–in order to make much of God. And that to make much of God is the reason why we were created.

I think I have tried to write this post dozens of times. I have sat down to write honestly about my fight with depression so many times. Writing comes easily to me, and yet this topic is one that I find difficult to address.

I can’t say when depression started. It’s not something, I think, that STARTS. Just one day it was there, it was palpable, it was real.

That’s not to say that there aren’t real circumstances, in my unique situation, that have exacerbated this depression. There are many types of depression. The one that plagues me is referred to as “Situational Depression”. There are events that I can point to as triggers. That gives me hope, actually. My heart hurts for those who suffer from Chronic Depression, or depression with no known situational triggers. O, to experience the throes of depression with nothing to be able to pin it on, would be terrifying I do believe.

It’s hard to even find the words to write, to describe depression. Words are so important to me. And yet there are not words that come easily to me as I try to write this afternoon. Elie Wiesel, in his book “Night” about the horrors of the concentration camp he was imprisoned in, wrote this about writing of these sacred things:

“….it would be necesssary to invent a new language…..I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again….All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale lifeless…..how was one to speak without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity…..”

Of course, I know of no such indescribable horrors that Wiesel endured. And yet his words speak to my heart as I struggle to also find words to convey the darker things of my soul.

Depression requires fighting, and fighting requires energy, and energy is absent in depression. It is a vicious cycle. I find myself facing what is proving to be a very physical fight. Disruption of sleep, disruption of healthy eating patterns, and strange other symptoms: Chilled, the inability to get warm, tension and jaw clenching (which is a symptom of one of the anti-depressants I am electing to take), hair loss, strange food cravings, insatiable appetite.

The worst is the darkness, the desperation, the despair. It is like a weight, without the muscle integrity to lift the weight that is crushing the body. Have you ever tried to watercolor? Truly painting with watercolors is difficult to do–the colors notoriously bleed into the other colors. That is what depression is like, it is the color black bleeding into all the other wonderful colors of life. And even if the bleeding stops for awhile, there is a small amount of seepage that can’t quite be detained.

Depression is cyclical. Meaning, there are times when it is pronounced much more than other times. This week is proving to be one of those times. Today is proving to be one of the more depression-oriented days. Days like this push hope further to the edges. And then there are days where hope is so close it can be grasped, and depression becomes something that seems distant, even “silly”.

Good grief, this is hard to write honestly about. Why is that? There is much shame in depression in my mind. Up until Christ made me different, I have lived a very judgmental life—-looking upon others without mercy, without compassion. Even my own children. And now one of the very things that I have spent my life being most judgmental and uncompassionate about, has a grip on me.

I don’t know what I think about Satan, nor his role in depression. I will admit that depression mimics characteristics of attack—surprise, brutal, exhausting. Could it truly be attack? I don’t know. I also don’t know what part sin has in depression. I am not saying sin causes depression, but what part does sin play in battling depression? These are just a few of the questions my mind tumbles around. Either way, I am out of words for today, and close this writing with these words by John Piper in the book “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God”

“Let us Celebrate That God is Sovereign Over Satan’s Spiritual Bondage”

“To be freed from this bondage we must repent. We must confess that God is good and trustworthy….But satan hates this repentance and does all he can to prevent it. That is his bondage. But when God chooses to overcome our rebellion and Satan’s resistance, nothing can stop him. And when God overcomes him and us, we repent and Satan’s power is broken. Here it is in 2 Timothy 2:24-26:

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Satan is not sovereign over his captives. God is. When God grants repentance, we are set free from the snare of the devil, and we spend our days celebrating our liberation and spreading it to others.”