Truths That Can Carry

A few reflections on anxiety and depression.

Earlier this week I hosted a lunch conversation at Truett Seminary called, “Pastoral Wisdom on Anxiety and Depression.”

I talked about some of the main themes in a video that can be seen here, but here are the main points:

• God is good.

• Hardships are real.

• Help is available.

• Healing is possible.

I was also asked to name a couple of resources I have found helpful, and pointed to Stephen Ilardi’s The Depression Cure and J. P. Moreland’s Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace.

In my talk at Truett this week, I added a few personal and theological reflections.

First, I’ve experienced depression, anxiety, and all of the accompanying hardships that come with those conditions. I’ve healed, recovered, and had stretches where I’ve been free from these conditions. I’ve learned to cope. I’ve learned to think about these hardships through the lens of my faith. I’ve thought about deliverance and healing, and the ballast offered by the gospel.

I’ve also thought about the ways pastoral ministry, and the pastoral office, lead to certain assumptions about the state of well-being experienced by those serving as vocational ministers.

There are pressures that come with pastoring. Pastors are asked to mediate conflicts, balance a lot of competing interests, and shoulder a lot of grief. They are also asked to set an example. Yet, pastors experience wounding due to the office they hold and the ordinary rough and tumble of everyday life. Their not immune to hardship. They can also hurt others, often as a result of their own woundedness. They are, after all, human beings.

It’s the human condition here that matters. There is an already/not yet dimension to the coming of the kingdom of God. While Christ may have come, while we may be justified, while we may be undergoing the process of being sanctified, we are not yet glorified. We are growing in faith. We are on our way to perfection. Christians are a people of patient hope. They are wayfaring pilgrims. In Christ, our salvation has come. Until Christ returns, our salvation is being worked out and worked in.

We are embodied creatures. We have a body, and who we are includes the body. My body is me, and I am my body. There is a body/soul distinction, but there is also a body/soul unity. There is a dichotomy of sorts, albeit a complex one.

This body has suffered under the curse of sin and bears its marks. Until the day Christ comes, healing may be occurring, it might become full, but the weighty burdens of our wounding may also be “thorns” we experience that drive us to rely more deeply and fully upon God. For me, seasons of depression and anxiety have reminded me of my weakness. They’ve reminded me of my need for grace. I can’t help but see a strange mercy in that, knowing that my response to hardship could have, and could be, otherwise.

This thought connects to my second theological reflection, which is that the process of sanctification involves suffering and discomfort that naturally accompanies growth and transformation.

God uses our trials and tribulations to bring us to greater maturity. And while I may not find the doldrums a pleasant place, I know there are lessons to be learned there.

My sufferings have led me to listen a little more closely, to have a little more compassion, and to be more attentive to the needs of others. I have learned to appreciate my community, particularly those who demonstrate love for me, and those to whom I am bound to demonstrate love.

Moreover, I’ve been reminded time and again that my sufferings with anxiety and depression are temporal and bound by the life I live in the body, while it lasts, whereas Jesus bore an eternal suffering for me on the cross. I’m carried by his love, knowing whatever hardship I experience, even if it seems unbearable, is momentary and little in comparison to what my Savior has done for me.

And then there is a third theological reflection, centered on the resurrection body and the eternal hope of the Christian person.

One day, this body will sleep. I’ll rest. I trust I will enter God’s presence—that is my hope, at least. And when I do, a burden will be lifted. And one day, when my body is raised up again, when I am made fully whole and fit for life in the fullness of God’s kingdom, I trust that whatever hardships I endured were so that the eternal weight of glory that my soul bears will radiate all the brighter, all to the everlasting glory of God.

My mom would often remind me to cast my anxieties on God because he cares for me, that I was fearfully and wonderfully made, and that my days were each written in God’s book.

Simple truths. But profound truths. Scriptural truths. Truths that have carried me, protected me in the vale, and and sustained me. These truths can carry you, too.

Book Notes

Still reading Ron Chernow’s Washington and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

I also began the novel The Overstory by Richard Powers.

Sights and Sounds

I continue to listen to Spoon.

Last Words

On the blog: John McPhee’s wisdom on a little writing every day, and a quote from Eugene Peterson reminding us that Christ’s blood has made the difference.

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Be well this week. Bless others.

Best,

BAS

P.S. - Visited Gruene, Texas last Friday. Good memories here.