The Antidote For Depression: How Pursuing a Daily Relationship With Christ Can Fill You With Life and Joy and Vitality and Wash Away Depression

I never struggled with depression until I was crushed by a sentence of 30 years in prison and was tossed into a cage. For years in prison, I struggled with extreme daytime sleepiness and chronic fatigue. I was in my 30s, and I did resistance training and cardio and maintained an impeccable diet. It didn’t matter. I felt 90. I just didn’t see a future beyond the 30 years I had to serve. My spirit was crushed and sapped me of all vitality and joy. Life became a hassle, a chore.

After running tests on me for years, one prison doctor said he thought it was clinical depression. He wanted to put me on antidepressants. I refused, and it was the best decision I ever made. Not long after that, I made a significant change in my life. I got into God’s Word, and everything changed.

Depression and fatigue were replaced with indescribable joy and vitality. Everything was different. I became supercharged. The best way I can describe it is where I previously felt dead inside and empty, I suddenly felt like I was plugged into this electricity that flowed through me. I would wake up with joy overflowing from my heart and great vitality.

My physical problem had a spiritual root, and no amount of pills was going to fix my problem. Had I agreed to take those antidepressants, I would probably be sluggish and experiencing all kinds of side effects. I would depend on a pill to make my mental chemistry balanced for the rest of my life, most likely, living a lie: I’m clinically depressed, and I need a pill to make me normal. Instead, I have an off-the-chart vitality at 43. I feel better than I did at 18. I cannot wait to get out of bed and enjoy my day.

Dallas pastor Tony Evans tells a story that aptly illustrates my main point, which I’ll paraphrase here. He was on a cruise with his wife when he started to experience pain in the upper left side of his mouth. He tried aspirin, but that didn’t help. Tony tried ibuprofen, but it didn’t help either. The pain was getting worse and became debilitating. Tony went to the ship doctor. The doctor gave him codeine to address the pain, advising him that now he could enjoy the rest of his cruise. But even that didn’t work. So then Tony called his dentist in Dallas, who told him that he had been treating the wrong problem all along. He had been addressing the pain, but his pain was only symptomatic of a much deeper problem. Tony had an abscess. All the codeine in the world wouldn’t solve the problem of an abscess, his dentist explained. “Only an antibiotic will get to the root of what you are experiencing.”

Tony stresses that his attempts to fix what he could see and feel only masked what needed to be addressed. In fact, had the aspirin, ibuprofen, or codeine worked, it would have led to a larger problem because he would have thought his issue had been solved, all the while enabling the infection to deepen and eventually spread into other parts of his body.

The antibiotics worked like magic because they dealt with the root of what was happening.

I didn’t beg God to take away my depression and fatigue. I diligently pursued the Word of God and cultivated an intimate daily relationship marked by time in God’s word and continual prayer. The rest just followed like a miracle cure. No pills. No treatment. Nothing.

Our thoughts control our feelings. If we meditate on all the negative things in your life all day, we will probably be depressed.

Instead of praying and seeking God first, many people run directly to a pill, which usually causes additional problems. I think many people are glued to a screen of some sort, too busy with work, the kids, money, vacations, and other daily life issues. Then when you throw a health, financial, or relational crisis into the mix, they become overwhelmed and depressed. So they go to a psychiatrist who gives them Xanax for their anxiety, sleep medication, and antidepressants. They are then hooked and dependent on pills to sustain them, to help them mitigate their inner misery so they can function. (There are 50 million Americans taking medication for mental health/anxiety.)

With the pills come side effects and, of course, the cost of the therapy and drugs. They live a lie: they have sleep and anxiety problems and a chemical imbalance that makes them depressed, so they need potent chemicals in pills to function. In a lot of cases, that’s just a lie.

Friends, if God is absent from your life, or if you’re not investing time in a relationship with God but instead are preoccupied with money, work, kids, spouse, and life, and there is no time in your daily life for God, and you become depressed when there is a financial or health or relational crisis or a combination thereof, or because you just have a void in you that makes you unfulfilled and depressed, then your body is doing exactly what it’s meant to do. You're carnal.

Let me repeat that. If you’re suffering from depression and a meaningful relationship with Christ is absent from your life, nothing is broken.

You don’t need a pill to fix your mental chemistry. Your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. That’s probably not a popular position, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Or if you’re going to church on Sundays, then waiting until next Sunday to “get religious” again, you are deceiving yourself. You’re putting God into a box. Let him into all areas of your life so you can experience that abundant life now.

It’s faulty and borderline delusional to believe that we don’t have time for God while also expecting the full benefits and rewards of his Word. That’s wrong. No such one-sided relationship will ever flourish, not even in a human relationship

You might enter heaven, but you won’t experience all there is to experience now, nor experience additional rewards in heaven. You’ll squeak by and live a life that is hardly distinguishable from an atheist.

We need to constantly refuel with the Holy Spirit. Then you’ll see depression, addictions, and other strongholds melt away effortlessly. And you will have the capacity to experience joy and contentment and peace in every circumstance.

I’m confined to a prison cell. And I’m thriving emotionally, spiritually, and physically. My life is full. My heart is full. And I love my days. It might not be where I want to be, but I can honestly enjoy today while waiting on my external circumstances to change—my joy is not dependent on my release from prison or any relationship or anything else. It is a by-product of an intimate relationship with and time in God’s Word.

By no means is God’s Word a vaccine that protects us from problems. I’m not suggesting that I’m immune from life’s ups and downs. And I'm certainly not suggesting that Christians can't be depressed or if you are a Christian who is depressed, then something is wrong with you.

I'm not saying that. And there are certainly extreme cases in which medication is merited.

I'm simply saying start with the spiritual. Don't skip Christ and run to a pill or psychiatrist. Focus on a daily relationship with God. His word is full of treasures that will help us find combat discouragement and anger and every problem life can throw at us. And it's alive. It can heal and restore.

And I’m not saying to ignore the physical. Sleep. Rest. Exercise. Take care of yourself. Cultivate healthy relationships that enrich your life. Love. Forgive. Empty your heart of bitterness and stop clinging to all the wrongs others have done to you. Live. Make prudent financial decisions. Make God’s Word a priority. I promise you will unlock spiritual gifts that will transform your life—even as you continue to deal with all the problems that life throws at you.

But it makes no sense to neglect our spiritual life while we are dominated by the physical, then act baffled when we are not experiencing the gifts and rewards of God’s Word.

There’s a better way.

I want something to be unequivocal. I'm not pushing religion. That is not what I'm pushing. Religion can be empty and cold and lifeless. Churches are full of people who adhere to religious routines, who pray, who have a comprehensive knowledge of the bible, but who know nothing about God, because relationship and love are absent from their empty religion.

We all know people who profess to be Christians who are cold and callous and hypocritical and judgemental and rigid. They go to church and know the bible, but because of their rigidness they sure aren't people we want to be around. I get it.  But people like that aren't truly representative of the kind of people I'm talking about, authentic people who are overflowing with the fruit of the spirit because of their intimate relationship with Christ.

I'm saying that in God's Word is full of life and peace and joy and so much more, as well as weapons to combat discouragement and depression and anger and bitterness and envy and unforgiveness so we can live an abundant life, so we can have the capacity to enjoy the things and people in our life, and so we can withstand the storms of life—so we can thrive and grow even during adversity.

That's what I'm talking about—not "religion."