Spiritual Depression & Seasons Of Darkness

William Gurnall  The Christian in Complete Armour

The soul never drowns in despair till it hath lost its hold (hope) on the power of God.  

Richard Sibbes

A Christian may for many days together see neither sun nor star, neither light in God's countenance, nor light in his own heart, though even at that time God darts some beams through those clouds upon the soul; the soul again by a spirit of faith sees some light through those thickest clouds, enough to keep it from utter despair, though not to settle it in peace. In this dark condition, if they do as Paul and his company did, cast an anchor even in the dark night of temptation, and pray still for day, God will appear, and all shall clear up, we shall see light without and light within; the day-star will arise in their hearts.

       The Bruised Reed

Christ is never nearer us in power to uphold us than when he seems most to hide his presence from us. The influence of the Son of righteousness pierces deeper than his light. 

When we feel ourselves cold in affection and duty, we best warm ourselves at this fire of His love and mercy in giving Himself for us. 

        The Soul's Conflict With Itself  

Why doth God appear as a stranger to me?

That thou shouldst follow after him with the stronger faith and prayer; he withdraws himself, that thou shouldst be the more earnest in seeking after him. God speaks the sweetest comfort to the heart in the wilderness. 

When a man sees no comfort from above, and looks inward and sees less; when he looks about him, and sees nothing but evidences of God's displeasure; beneath him, and sees nothing but desperation; clouds without, and clouds within, nothing but clouds in his condition here, he had need of faith to break through all, and see sun through the thickest cloud.

We say, when the body of the moon is betwixt the sun and us, that the sun is eclipsed, when indeed not the sun but the earth is darkened: the sun loseth not one of its glorious beams. God is oft near us, as he was unto Jacob, and we are 'not aware of it,' Gen. 28:16.

C.H. Spurgeon

        "The Word A Sword"

When you have nothing to say to your God, let Him say something to you. The best private devotion is made up half of searching Scripture in which God speaks to us and the other half of prayer and praise in which we speak to God. When you (feel) dead, turn from your death to that which still lives.

        Sword and Trowel, 1883                                                                                                                                                                   

Do not rise upon feelings, and you will not sink under them. Keep to believing: rest all your weight upon the promises of God, and when heart and flesh fail, God will be the strength of your heart and your portion for ever.

Thomas Brooks                                                                                                                                                                                       

One of Satan's devices to keep poor souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition is causing them to be always posing and musing upon sin; to mind their sins more than their Saviour: yea, so to mind their sins as to forget and neglect their Saviour. Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease that they cannot see their remedy, though it be near; and they do so muse upon their debts that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their surety.

William Carey, October 26, 1794, during the 5 month voyage from England to India

Sometimes when I should most expect light, love & the image of God to abound in me, I feel dead, barren, and dark…

J.C. Philpot

The child of the light is sometimes found walking in darkness, but he goes on walking.

A.B. Simpson

Seldom will we see a sadder wreck of even the highest, noblest Christian character than when the enemy has succeeded in undermining the simple trust of a child of God and lured him into self-accusation and condemnation. It is a fearful place when the believer allows Satan to take the throne and act as God, sitting in judgment of his every thought and act and keeping him in the darkness of ceaseless condemnation. 

        On 2 Corinthians 5:7 "We walk by faith, not by sight" 

Is this a dark hour in your life? Is it the winter of barrenness and gloom? Remember that it is God's chosen time for the education of faith, and that He conceals beneath the surface precious and untold harvests of unthought of fruit! It will not always be night. And when the morning comes and spring spreads its verdant mantle over the barren fields, then we shall be glad that we did not disappoint our Father in the hour of testing, but our faith had already claimed and seen in the distance the glad fruition which sight now beholds.

Lord, help me to believe when I cannot see and to learn from my trials to trust Thee more.

George MacDonald

(God) has an especial tenderness of love towards thee for that thou art in the dark and hast no light, and His heart is glad when thou dost arise and say, "I will go to my Father."

Henri Nouwen

Sometimes we experience a terrible dryness in our spiritual life. We feel no desire to pray, don’t experience God’s presence, get bored with worship services, and even think that everything we ever believed about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is little more than a childhood fairy tale. Then it is important to realize that most of these feelings and thoughts are just feelings and thoughts, and that the Spirit of God dwells beyond our feelings and thoughts. It is a great grace to be able to experience God’s presence in our feelings and thoughts, but when we don’t, it does not mean that God is absent. It often means that God is calling us to a greater faithfulness. It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God. 

T. L. Cuyler  

It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.

Oswald Chambers  My Upmost for His Highest Devotional Calendar 

'Be still and know that I am God' (Psalm 46:10) Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood: darkness is the time to listen.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones  Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, 1965

As a physician and long-time pastor, Lloyd-Jones was certainly qualified to address the soul-sickness of Spiritual Depression. He was quite clear at the beginning of his sermon series that depression may certainly have a medical explanation, and a medical treatment, and depression should be evaluated medically as well as spiritually. He would also understand that tremendous progress has been made since the 60s in understanding the genetic and neuro-biologic basis for depression.

Lloyd-Jones - Many Christian people, in fact, are in utter ignorance concerning this realm where the borderlines between the physical, psychological and spiritual meet. Frequently I have found that such [church] leaders had treated those whose trouble was obviously mainly physical or psychological, in a purely spiritual manner; and if you do so, you not only don’t help. You aggravate the problem.  

http://hcf-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Spiritual-Depression-Its-Causes-and-Cure-Dr-Martyn-Lloyd-Jones.pdf 

The ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief. It is because we listen to the devil instead of listening to God that we go down before him and fall before his attacks.

Your business and mine is not to stir up our feelings, it is to believe. I cannot make myself happy, but I can remind myself of my belief. Christian, say: "I do not feel anything, but whether I feel or not, I believe the Scriptures. I believe God's Word is true, and I will stay my soul on it..."

Here is a superb bit of psychology, for what after all, is the main cause of this spirit of fear? The answer is ‘self’ – self-love, self-concern, self-protection. Had you realized that the essence of this trouble is that these fearful people are really too absorbed in self – how can I do this, what if I fail? ‘I’ – they are constantly turning in upon themselves, looking at themselves and concerned about themselves.  And it is just here that the spirit of love comes in, for there is only one way to get rid of yourself. There is only one cure for self. You will never deal with self yourself. That was the fatal fallacy of those poor men who became monks and anchorites. They could get away from the world and from other people, but they could not get away from themselves. Your self is inside you and you cannot get rid of him, the more you mortify yourself the more your self will torment you.

There is only one way to get rid of self, and that is that you should become so absorbed in someone or something else that you have no time to think about yourself. Thank God, the Spirit of God makes that possible. He is not only the ‘spirit of power’, but He is also the ‘spirit of love’. What does it mean? It means love to God, love to the great God who made us, love to the great God who has made the way of redemption for us miserable creatures – for us who deserve nothing but hell. He has ‘loved us with an everlasting love’ (Jeremiah 31:3). Think of that, says Paul to Timothy, and as you become absorbed in the love of God you will forget all about yourself. ‘The spirit of love!’ It will deliver you from self-interest, self-concern, and from depression about self, because depression results from self and self-concern. It gets rid of self at all points. So talk to yourself about this eternal, amazing love of God – the God Who ever looked upon us in spite of sin and planned the way of redemption and spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all.

        Spiritual Depression audio sermons from the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Trust

        https://www.mljtrust.org/free-sermons/spiritual-depression/ 

“Breadth, Length, Depth, Height”

http://articles.ochristian.com/article528.shtml

Have you been feeling sorry for yourself, and somewhat lethargic in a spiritual sense? Have you been regarding worship and prayer as tasks? Have you allowed the world the flesh or the devil to defeat you and to depress you? The one antidote to that is to meditate upon and to contemplate this love of Christ. Have you realized its breadth, its length, its depth, its height? Have you realized who and what you are as a Christian? Have you realized that Jesus is "the Lover of your soul", that He has set His affection upon you? Have you realized the height of His ambition for you? "Child of God, shouldst thou repine"? Are we but to shuffle through this world?

"Physical; Psychological; Spiritual" on Ephesians 6:10-13 (Important  context)

https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/book-of-ephesians/physical-psychological-spiritual/ 

A.W. Tozer 

        The Divine Conquest

The value of the "dark night of the soul" lies in its power to detach us from life's passing interests and to throw us back upon eternity. It serves to empty our earthly vessels and prepare us for the inpouring of the Holy Spirit.

        Jesus, Our Man in Glory

God's eternal blessings do not depend on how you feel today. My feelings in no way change my heavenly hope or God's promises.

 2 Samuel 22:29, Psalm 18:28 (David's Song of Praise), 112:4

You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD (my God) turns my darkness into light.

Psalm 30:10-12 (HCSB)

Lord, listen and be gracious to me; Lord, be my helper.

You turned my lament into dancing; You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, so that I can sing to You and not be silent.

Lord my God, I will praise You forever.

Isaiah 61:3a

Provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Sinclair Ferguson, Deserted by God?

https://www.ligonier.org/blog/deserted-god/ 

John Piper

        When the Darkness Will Not Lift 

http://dwynrhh6bluza.cloudfront.net/resources/documents/5205/books_bdnl.pdf?1340650913 

        The Hidden Smile Of God

http://dwynrhh6bluza.cloudfront.net/resources/documents/5168/books_bhs.pdf?1340649794  

"It Is Well With My Soul" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3lgJrLhb5Y  

"Jesus Lover Of My Soul" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffUsrMJAxeQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYadCyVsXFo

“Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven”

Henry Francis Lyte to Lauda Anima (Psalm 103) 

Psalm 103:1-4 (NLT)

Let all that I am praise the Lord;

    with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.

Let all that I am praise the Lord;

    may I never forget the good things he does for me.

He forgives all my sins

    and heals all my diseases.

He redeems me from death

    and crowns me with love and tender mercies. 

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;

to his feet your tribute bring.

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,

evermore his praises sing.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Praise the everlasting King! 

Praise him for his grace and favor

to his people in distress.

Praise him, still the same as ever,

slow to chide, and swift to bless.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Glorious in his faithfulness! 

Fatherlike he tends and spares us;

well our feeble frame he knows.

In his hand he gently bears us,

rescues us from all our foes.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Widely yet his mercy flows! 

Angels, help us to adore him;

you behold him face to face.

Sun and moon, bow down before him,

dwellers all in time and space.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Praise with us the God of grace!  

E.B. Pusey  The Quiet Hour

Let my very coldness call for the glow of Thy love; let my emptiness and dryness, like a barren and thirsty land, thirst for Thee, call on Thee to come into my soul, who refreshest those who are weary. Let my heart ache to Thee and for Thee, who stillest the aching of the heart. Let my mute longings praise Thee, crave to Thee, who satisfiest the empty soul, that waits on Thee.

F.B. Meyer  Our Daily Walk

Blessed Christ! The storm is high, the night is dark. Come to me, I beseech Thee. In Thy presence is fulness of Joy (Psalm 16:11b)

A good prescription from Paul to Timothy when we are growing "cold"; 2 Timothy 1:6

"Fan into flame your (spiritual) gifts..."

Use your gifting to bless others, and you will soon find your spirit warmed.