The Long View Must Prevail

A thoughtful reader asked whether it was possible I was depressed. The answer is yes, and I appreciate the question, which helped me consider the issue.

I was completely miserable during the last two days. My friend Marvin was dead, my faith was under attack, and a loving member of my household, with whom I had interacted nearly every day for 29 years, was gone, leaving a gaping hole, like a crater where the living room once was.

Something I had dreaded and dreamed about for years, which I had fought as hard as I could, had happened. My emotions were drowning me.

It made me think about Job. All the children he had hugged and loved as babies, and for whom he made daily sacrifices, had died in a moment, and his body had broken out in boils. He said, “the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.” Although his misfortune was much greater than mine, I think I understand the nature of what he felt. I don’t think he was talking about the boils. He wanted to save his children.

I am not habitually depressed, though. That hasn’t happened to me since the ordeal I went through as a graduate student, when I was away from God and pumped full of ADD drugs, socially isolated and watching my dream slip away from me despite my best efforts. That was almost 30 years ago.

I have sometimes said I was depressed by proxy, however.

I have a great life. My relationship with God lifts me up above the turmoil, worry, and failure that are inundating most people. I know I’m saved. God answers my prayers over and over. I have a wonderful wife and son. My health is good. I don’t have to work. I live in an area full of warm, kind Christian people.

On the other hand, I see the world collapsing around me. Satan won the popularity contest, and even in formerly-Christian countries, people are turning to Satan in droves. Here in America, our culture is hateful and nauseating compared to the culture of 2000, and the farther back you go for comparison, the worse 2025 looks. In videos about the 1940’s, people who were considered normal then seem like those who are considered religious freaks today.

I can’t help people. Not many, anyway. No matter how good things get for me, I can’t get other people to listen to my testimony and give the Holy Spirit a try. I have to sit back and watch them destroy themselves needlessly. I know it won’t change to the point where the tide goes the other way.

I coined the term “depression by proxy” to describe this situation. Depressed people have no hope for themselves. I have no hope for the world.

God clearly agrees with me about the world. He told us the tribulation was coming. He didn’t say it might come. It will happen.

I would be much happier if I were not surrounded by people who are doomed, but I am not depressed. Not ordinarily. I was depressed this week, and I was depressed when my other bird died, but these were brief intervals. I haven’t gotten depressed when human beings died.

One mark of depression is predicting your own future irrationally. I have been doing this to some extent. I predicted that I would be stuck here for the rest of my life, watching other people crash and burn, and I thought it would be very hard to bear. Now I am leveling off. I realize my prediction about other people was correct, but I also know God will not allow me to be miserable on a chronic basis. Depression is the opposite of joy, and the Holy Spirit provides joy. It is named as one of the fruit of the Spirit. I feel it today. It displaces grief.

I don’t feel great, but today is much better than yesterday, and things will get better as God supplies me.