Welcome to Hope in the Morning, turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. King David was a man after God's own heart despite his depression, weakness, failings, and bad choices. The fact that David was God's heart chaser was revealed not in David avoiding depression, but rather in how he responded to it. He let it usher him into the presence of God. He let it usher him into the presence of God and let it teach him to cry out to God and trust him more deeply.
These beautiful words were penned by my guest today, which is a pastor and author of the wonderful book called Dark Valleys, Pastor Todd Smith. This book is called Dark Valleys, When You Love Jesus But Hate Life, and it discusses depression in the life of the believer, but it's filled with compassion and biblical hope. Pastor Todd, thank you for joining us today on Hope in the Morning. Hey, thanks so much for the invite. I've been looking forward to this time all week long.
Yes, I have as well. You know, I was telling you before we came on air that this book has been, it's been actually one of my favorite books I've read in a long time. And I, especially in the past year or so, have become a pretty avid reader. I usually have five or six books going at the same time. Yep.
And man, this book has really ministered to my own heart so much because just like we said in the intro, you address this topic of depression, which I think is kind of a not very touched on topic in the church, because people want to kind of pretend that it doesn't ever happen to the believer. But it's so important. What led you to think this was an important enough topic that you needed to write a book on it?
Well, you know, that's an interesting question. It wasn't so that I could sell thousands of books and make lots of money because you write a book on depression.
Some people don't want to buy it.
Some people don't think they are depressed and some think they're in sin for reading it.
So it's not the bestseller book, but I wrote it because I read a book and that book was entitled Spurgeon's Sorrows. And in that book, it talked about Charles Spurgeon. If there's a Mount Rushmore with preachers on it, Spurgeon would be one of them. And he missed, this book detailed, he missed one-third of all his preaching Sundays due to illness and depression. And I was really shocked by that.
And I did a little more investigation on him. And that's the truth. And I ended up writing a blog. And I wrote a little blog about depression. And it wasn't meant to pick a side or contend people for, you know, wanting to take medication or wanting to take verses or this or that therapy.
It was just meant to be an encouragement. And after I wrote it, I had people all over my community. Every time I walked into a Starbucks, whether they went to my church or not, they walked up and they whispered to me, thank you for writing that blog. I've suffered with depression, but I can't tell anybody. And that really bothered me in the sense of the church should be a place where we go to to process things like this.
Yes. And so that really was the catalyst to write this book. It's like I'm kind of a contrarian by nature, so I'm going to do something that most people haven't done, and that was just write a book, not picking a side of how to approach depression, but really just being a balm, if I could say it that way, for a parched soul, a heart that's sorrowful or suffering. or is depressed. And that was really the reason I ended up writing this book.
Did you find as a pastor, you're a pastor in the Los Angeles area, did you find that you had counseled a lot of people that were battling depression? Yeah, you know, a lot of the counseling that comes in, and I always tell people, I'm not a great counselor. If you come into my office, I just tell you to stop doing whatever you're doing, and that's about it. But those that I counsel, I find there's a number of people, what I call silent sufferers in the church, that suffer either from a deep-seated depression all the way to a mild discouragement. And, you know, discouragement is fine, but when it starts to lead into despair, that's where you start to tip into this darker depression.
And, you know, discouragement is probably Satan's greatest tool against you and I. If he can discourage us, he can basically paralyze us from doing anything. And what happens is that discouragement can lead into a despair, which then can lead into a depression. And this book is meant to be for really all three of those categories, no matter where you find yourself. Again, it's meant to be that of an encouragement, not trying to figure out all the whys and the whats spiritually, physiologically, and so forth.
Yeah, you know, I think what you said a minute ago is something, And one of the big reasons why I not only wanted to read this, but once I started reading it, it was like, man, I got to see if Pastor Todd will come on Hope in the Morning and talk about this. And that is the fact that so many people that do suffer from depression in the church feel like it needs to be a hidden suffering. And because I think there's so much that's not understood in the church for one thing about it. And the fact that people want to say so often like, oh, but you have the joy of the Lord. If you're a believer, you have the joy of the Lord.
And Spurgeon himself, as you mentioned, he talks about the fact that he has known some of life's greatest joys unlike most men could ever experience, but he has also likewise known some of the deepest, darkest, most depressed seasons unlike any other man could know. And yet we hail him as, and rightly so, we hail him as such a pivotal, powerful preacher. And same with King David, same with Paul. You know, these men, they suffered. And yet they never, they didn't turn their back on their faith, but their faith did not keep them from suffering.
Like they still suffered in this world. How have you found that publishing Dark Valleys has helped remove some of that stigma in the church where people can come and say, hey, this was a great book for me. I found a lot of hope in this book. What does that look like for you? Yeah, I mean, for us, it's real simple.
It's a book, obviously, as the pastor of our church, I wrote.
So I kind of ripped off the taboo factor of this whole thing. And so in our community, there's a real sense of openness. If there is any hiddenness, that's by somebody's personal choice. Because we've kind of opened up the can of worms, so to speak, and said, you know what? You can love Jesus, but still struggle in life.
You can love Jesus and still be discouraged. Frankly, you can be depressed even. You can despair. Paul said it. He says we despaired of life itself.
And so I think what it did is it just kind of took away the taboo. And now people within our community, they're much quicker to address it, which is wonderful because the sooner you address it, the sooner you can get some relief and some victory and some hope. Yes, yes. By talking to somebody. Yeah, you say in your book on one of the pages, I love this phrase.
It says, we do not surrender to the darkness. We surrender the darkness to the light. And I think that's what we need. Because just like you're saying, when we hide depression, or even if it's not to the point of depression, when we're feeling discouraged and despair and we feel like, well, I can't go and talk to my church about that. I can't, that's not what I'm going to bring up in small group because that makes me look like my faith is weak.
I truly think and have experienced this where that is where Satan gets that foothold and he can start whispering all kinds of lies to you all the way down to causing you to doubt your salvation, to think, well, you're the only one that's in this dark valley. And so no one else is going to understand. And that's what he wants us to think. He's the father of all lies. he wants us to think that we are alone in this and that no other believer is going to be able to relate and so we should just keep it to ourselves um yeah you know i actually i i wrote a poem that i'm going to read real quick because i think those that haven't gone through depression maybe this will help them understand a little bit of what it feels like when you're in that season and i think it ties in so much to your book so this is called when the valley is dark and it says A secret sorrow settles in the silence of my soul, wounded, weary, weak, and worn, waiting in my woe.
Tempted, tried, and tested with turbulence and trials, succumbing to my sadness but masking it with smiles. Dreading how the darkness devours me in doom, tired of my tainted thoughts that lead me to the tomb. Lamenting like a little child with languished head hung low, pounding heart proved powerless beneath the prowess foe. Hands held high toward heaven with heavy, bated breath. Deliver me, dear light of lights, from this dark dismay and death.
Pleading for pity to put an end to my plight, I turn toward the truth and cling to him tight. Father, I'm famished, feeble and frail. Feed me with a feast of truth and let my faith not fail. settled and sated with the sound of the spirit whispered with love so my weak heart could hear it little lamb i hear your lament when you cried out to me my ear was low bent you were never alone when you were anxious or angry bring me your battles i'll bear them upon me exhaling exhausted falling in his embrace gently guided by the god of all grace i think about how good thank you i I think about how your book really covers that whole gamut of emotions. It covers when we feel like we are so depleted that we feel far from the Lord.
But I love when you talk about Psalm 23. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, yeah, I know. And your poem referenced that in the sense of us being the lambs. And I wish you would have given me that poem before I wrote my book.
I could have put it in there. But at any rate, Psalm 23, I preached through it about the same time I did that blog on depression. And one of the things that came out of preaching through Psalm 23, I took about eight weeks to go through it. It was a huge encouragement to people that were dealing with discouragement, despair, and even depression. And so I thought, that's the tall drink of water.
I'm not going to give them a bunch of taught isms. I'm not going to give them some bumper sticker theology. I'm not going to say, take this pill and you'll be better in the morning, or take this verse and you'll be better in the morning. I wanted them to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with the shepherd. And so the whole book is built around walking through the valley of the shadow of death with the shepherd, the great shepherd, the good shepherd, and finding out that he will lead us through that valley.
Understanding there's no way out of the valley, there's only a way through it. And helping people understand that when they're in the midst of it is when the shepherd does some of his best work on us. And not seeing the depression as the enemy, but as your friend.
Sorry, when we come back from the break, we're going to talk about what that looks like to have depression seen as our friend, how we can build a closer relationship, a more intimate relationship with the Lord through these seasons.
So join us again in a moment on Hope in the Morning. As a grief counselor with years of experience, I can testify that Hope in the Morning is one of the best resources out there. Out of all the grief books I've purchased and that others gave me, this is the book that has helped me the most. These stories don't showcase the individuals as heroes who battled and conquered the worst. The stories of Hope in the Morning provide a marvelous perspective, allowing the listener to focus on Christ rather than self.
These stories remind me of who my Savior is and that there is truly hope in the morning. To learn more, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. John 1335 says By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another Do you know how to best love and serve your hurting brother or sister in Christ Listen to Hope in the Morning and be equipped to offer the hope of Jesus to every hurting heart. To learn more or to partner with our ministry, visit us at hopeinthemorning.org. Hope in the Morning allows you to lean into the suffering of others and helps equip you to purposefully mourn with and meaningfully minister to those suffering in your midst.
May these testimonies cause you to see our God with fresh and thankful eyes and may you seek to be His hands and feet to every weary heart. Visit HopeInTheMorning.org to learn how you can partner with us in ministry. All right, so I'm joined today with Pastor Todd Smith. He's the author of Dark Valleys, When You Love Jesus But Hate Life. And we're talking about how he ties Psalm 23 and the way that God tends to us as sheep.
And Pastor Todd, you were saying before we had to go to break about how we don't have to look at depression as the enemy. We can look at it as a friend. What do you mean by that? Yeah, what I mean by that is that the more you try to fight it, the more it seems to overtake you. And as we talked previously, getting it out in the light is the first thing.
Depression is a lot like mold. It grows in the dark exponentially. But when you can get it out in the light and you can talk to somebody about it, a godly man, a godly woman in your life, and be able to have one another's with somebody is where hope is really found. And so Psalm 23, it's the grand epic psalm of the book of Psalms for sure. King David, who struggled with his own set of depression, he soaked his pillow with his tears.
The Psalms remind us that God cares about our depression. In fact, he keeps all of our tears in a bottle. We try to get rid of the Kleenex. He keeps it. And, and therefore I want to make it my friend, not my enemy, because it's in those valleys that I began to see God's character in ways that I never could see them on a mountaintop.
I could only see them from the, the, the, the deepest point of the valley. And what I try to do is just help people walk through and let the Lord guide them to find those green pastures where he makes you lie down. And he never asked us to lie down. He makes us. And sometimes that make is a mild discouragement to a deep despair or depression, and it can be a season.
And one of the friend ideas that I use with people often is if you've ever been to the beach and you're standing there and a wave's coming at you, that wave is coming at you no matter what you do. You can yell at it. You can scream at it. You can even put your hand out to try to stop it. But make no mistake, that wave is going to have its way and it's going to come over you.
And the water may go up to your eyeballs. but once it goes past you, you know, you'll be standing in knee-deep water again. And so picture the metaphor of the wave is the depression, the discouragement. Instead of fighting it, it's welcoming it and saying, you know what, the Lord's going to teach me something. The water's going to get really, really high, but it's going to pass over me.
Why? Because I'm going to get through the valley. I'm going to get through the valley of the shadow of death. and everything I've wanted in this life, even if I don't get it, I'm absolutely promised it to be in the land of the living for all of eternity.
So I'm going to get what I've always wanted. It's just a matter of timing. There's something else that you say that reminds me of you bringing up David that I think is great to talk about is the fact that it's important that we do examine our hearts when we find ourselves in seasons of depression, because just like with David, when we read through the Psalms, sometimes, as you pointed out, sometimes his root of depression was rooted in sin, in his own sin. It wasn't always.
Sometimes it was rooted in his son pursuing him to death, things like that, things that were out of his control and were not rooted in sin. But other times it had to do with the death of his son, which was rooted in his sin with Bathsheba. Sure. How do you counsel people on that? How do you get them to address any issues of the heart that may be there before realizing that sometimes you have to settle in the season and ride out the wave, as you were saying?
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's so important. I mean, one of the first steps you've got to do when you're in the valley there is understand you're a sheep.
Okay, you're not the shepherd. You're a sheep, which means sheep, they're known for a number of things. One is they're known that they get easily stained. they can get dirty really fast. And when they get dirty, they can actually get so dirty, so heavy that they're turned over cast, meaning they're turned over upside down because their wool gets so heavy.
And that can be all of a sudden you're upside down. And the reason you're upside down is because sin has stained you. You've gotten dirty. And so you have to repent of that. You have to deal with that.
You have to confess it. You've got to get an accountability partner. You've got to work through fruits of repentance and let the Lord clean you up and give you a fresh, white as wool, as the scripture says, bath. And so that's really important. The other aspect is for sheep, they're not known for their smartness.
They're known for stupidity. That's why you and I, when we go to the circus, I bet you've never seen trained sheep. Yeah. You can train a lot of animals, but you've never seen trained sheep because they're stupid. And so we can do dumb things that then become sin.
Not all dumb things are sin, but a lot of dumb things are sin. And when that happens, you reap what you sow. And so then you've got to deal with that sin once again for God to cleanse you, to be freed from that bondage maybe of that sin that is dragging you back into the darkness. And in the darkness is where the despair is.
So you've got to go to the root of the problem, not just the symptoms, but you've got to get to the root. And sometimes that root, it's not physiological, it's spiritual and it's sin. And you've got to dig that root out. Yeah. I love also when you talk about the fact that what happens to our souls affects our bodies and vice versa.
I think that that's an important side to both sides of this depression coin, if you want to say it like that, is just like you were saying that sometimes when there's unaddressed sin in our lives, our spiritual life can affect our bodies. It can affect the way that we feel. It can affect sometimes our actual, like we can get sick. You can get nauseated, like headaches, all kinds of things, and vice versa.
Sometimes when we find ourselves in either we're going through an immense trial, you know, like David did when his son was pursuing him to death, or maybe we're going through an immense physical trial, and that turns into a season. Can you talk about that? Yeah, that's so true. The interconnection between, you know, the body and spirit. I'm a dichotomous, so I believe we're two parts, body and spirit, body and soul.
and that connection, man, if you can figure out perfectly how that connects, I'd love to know. There's a great mystery on both sides. Those of us that follow Christ and understand the scriptures and even in secular psychology world, they don't even fully understand it. But there is a connection there of when does the body start and the spirit stop and vice versa.
So what I was talking about in the book is that there is that direct correlation. And one of the things that, for example, of dealing with the emotional aspect of depression is one of the easiest solutions is getting outside and getting physical activity. It's amazing what physical activity does for a depressed or discouraged person. And frankly, it's the antithesis of what you feel like doing. Yes.
But in the book, I talk about feelings. Feelings are like buses. A new one comes every 10 minutes.
So I got to move past what I feel and go to what I know. And what I know is if I go out and take a 30-minute walk in the sun, I'm going to have a different feeling than I have right now. Yeah. And to me, that's the biggest example. Like just everybody can just go out and prove it today.
Like if you're feeling discouraged right here today, go out for a 30 minute walk and test me on this. Yeah. I guarantee you, you're going to feel differently after that activity. Yeah. As, as we conclude the radio portion of this, I think it's important too, for listeners, especially those that have never gone through depression to understand that depression does not always look like sadness.
And you do address that in your book that, and, and actually the, the guests that I, that I have on speaking through his long period of depression that he went through as a believer, his depression felt like nothingness. It felt like a lack of all emotion. And I think that that's an important thing for us to realize, not only as those of us that may be suffering through that form of depression, but also those that walk alongside them.
So with the last 30 seconds to a minute that we have here. How can we as a church, how can we serve people that are in that season? Yeah, that's a great question. Two things, two rapid things. One is be willing to talk with others about your own discouragement.
And I don't mean depression because maybe you haven't been to a depression, so don't make one up. But we've all been discouraged. You talk about it. What you do is you level set the relationship and you make that a non-taboo topic. The second thing you do is you ask deeper questions than surface questions.
And that is about their life, what they're doing, the choices they're making, not just how do they feel today, but how is their life going? You know, big picture. How's life going for you? Let's say the past six months. Yeah.
That's a different question than how, hey, how are you feeling today? Yeah. Yeah. And you open up the door of conversation. Yeah.
You know, I think that those are great takeaways for this episode. And those that are listening to us on the radio right now, tune back in on Tuesday and you'll get to hear the full episode of this. We're going to finish our conversation here. We've got a lot more to say about what he covers in his book, Dark Valleys. And we would highly recommend that you listen, whether you're in that valley yourself, or even just as those of us in the church that will inevitably find ourselves walking alongside someone else who is.
So Todd, going on with what you were saying, why do you think it is that the church and Christians in general kind of struggle, and again, you talk about this in your book, but kind of struggle with acknowledging that Christians can have seasons of depression. And not only this, but you mentioned in your book also that sometimes people are almost afraid to be near them, almost as if they think this depression is going to be contagious. Why do you think that is? Yeah, I think, you know, you said it earlier, we're supposed to have the joy of the Lord, right? And in theory, and in practice, but in theory, also, we're to be the happiest people on the earth.
We have the hope of eternity. We have Christ in me, the Spirit of God in me. And so that sets an expectation that, you know what, I'm supposed to have heaven here on earth. And that's not reality. We're not in the glorified state.
We're in the sanctifying state. And so I think what we do is we raise the bar of expectation for each other. And therefore, we feel ashamed the fact that we should be the happiest people on the planet, but we're actually really kind of discouraged lately. And honestly, I'm in a depression. And one of the keys you know you're in depression is not that you have a lot of feelings.
One of the keys is that you know you don't have really any feelings. You become numb, as you've mentioned before. And so So I think there's just that shame factor. And the reality is people, I think every Christian is going either coming out of a discouragement or is about ready to head into one. And we don't realize that it's very common.
So common, as I said, the Lord says, I keep your tears in a bottle.
So we must cry some because he keeps them around. And I think that we just have to get rid of that stigma of I a weak Christian That could be the farthest thing from the truth or it could be the truth I don't know. But it doesn't necessarily have any bearing at times on whether you're depressed. You might have a physiological issue going on. Yeah.
Would you say with that, when people are struggling with, man, am I just a weak Christian, could that be more, I guess, rooted in whether or not they are in a position where they're talking about it and exposing that to people and pouring it out before the Lord or not? Because I feel like you see with David when he, and even with Spurgeon, when they go through these seasons, you see them pour their heart out before the Lord.
So they're not acting as if the Lord doesn't see what's already on their heart. Instead, they're taking it to the Lord, whether it is confession of sin or taking it to him in a position of lamenting before him saying, this is too heavy of a burden for me. I need you to take this burden. Would you say that that is a sign of a more mature believer that takes it to the Lord? Absolutely, 100%.
because you're thinking, think it out, biblically speaking, who does the, who does the Lord draw near to? The broken heart, contrite in heart. The, the person who, who comes authentically and says, I'm really struggling. I'm, I'm, I'm really not doing okay. And, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to read too many chapters into Job to realize that God has very thick skin and broad shoulders.
He can handle our despair and discouragement. I think that is a sign of godliness, is that you run to the shepherd and say, I'm just mere sheep and anoint my head with oil, and I need a green pasture. And God answers those prayers.
Sometimes he takes it away, Sometimes he doesn't. People have wondered, what was Paul's thorn? We don't know. Could it have been depression? That's an option for sure, a discouragement.
At any rate, he prayed multiple times, but the Lord never took it away. I think Spurgeon's the same way. He ran to the Lord with it. He wrote about it. The reason you and I know about it is because he wrote about it.
Yeah. And isn't that awesome that this godly man who we esteem so highly would tell us so personal, intimate details about his life? Yeah. Yeah. You talk also in your book, which I think is important for the listener to hear, is that the green pastures that they talk about in Psalm 23 are often in the case of Israel, which is where David would have been authoring psalms.
it's not like this big, lush, giant horse pasture that you see where it's like, wow, it's just flowing with these rolling green hills. It's small patches amidst the rocks. And that's kind of what our life is here. Whether or not you have depression, in the grand scheme of what we were created to be, this life is rocks. I mean, this life is not what it was intended to be.
And I've even thought recently, I've been thinking through a lot about the story of Job and the story of Lazarus and how Jesus wept when Lazarus died. And for a long time, I thought, well, you know, Jesus wept because A, it was his friend that died. Lazarus was his friend. B, because he was mourning and setting an example for us to mourn with those who mourn as he wept with Mary and Martha. But it crossed my mind over the last like month that I wonder if part of why he wept as well is because that was probably one of the most intimate human experiences that Jesus had of what it feels like to be human and what the fall did to us in its ultimate price, which is death.
And he lost his friend and feeling the weight of that grief hit him in human form. And again, it's like, you know, he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, But he's not unacquainted with our griefs. He knows what the fall has done to us. And it's made it so our children die, our parents die. We don't have good health.
Those are all results of sin, the results of the fall. And because of that, I think that having a book like Dark Valleys is such timely hope. because many of us have faced some, and like you said, actually probably more than many, probably all have faced a season of discouragement. But just like we see with David and Spurgeon, when we can just be transparent and realize who we are before God, realize what it means that we're sheep and be able to say, this is truly where I'm standing and be able to confess that so that other believers can then walk behind us and say, there's hope. Look what the Lord did with Spurgeon.
Look what the Lord did with David. And they faced similar trials. There's hope for me. Yeah. And that's what despair is, is when you no longer see any hope.
It's when you come to the place where you believe that things will never change. And when you get to that, that's despair. And that's what can take you into a depression for sure. And so what you have to do is preach to yourself. You know, I always tell people, nobody talks to yourself as much as you do.
and and so we're constantly talking to ourself and uh what the problem is is we're we're telling ourselves a bunch of lies sometimes and and what we have to do is preach make no mistake that the preachers are not just the the men that stand up on a sunday morning from a pulpit and preach no every christ follower is a preacher and you got to preach to yourself yeah and you got to preach what is true. Paul says, think on these things, preach these things to you. And so we have to do that. And so when I get discouraged, I just start preaching to myself and telling myself what I know to be true, not what I feel to be true, but what I know to be true. And that is so important, is don't let Satan start telling you lies.
You tell yourself the truth. Yeah, and surrounding yourself with other Christ-like godly men and women that you can go to and take this topic out of the taboo pile and say, we're gonna talk about this at our Bible study, at our care group. We're gonna talk about this topic and we're gonna pray for one another in an honest way. That also is a way that we can speak truth into one another's lives and remind each other of the truth that we're hearing week after week from our pastor or that we're reading in scripture, we can help strengthen one another in that regard. You talk in your book about the acronym FAITH and how that plays into the valley.
and even in with that, the fact that sometimes we have to trust the Lord and just walk the hard path and knowing that there may not be a deliverance on the near horizon, but we can still be at rest knowing that we are being led by the Good Shepherd. How can the acronym that you talk about in your book, FAITH? How can that acronym help us walk faithfully in our dark valley? Yeah, that's great. You know, FAITH, I use it in the book as an acronym, focused attention in truth and hope.
Focused attention in truth and hope.
So that's the acronym FAITH. And FAITH, as I mentioned in the book too, is a verb. We got to turn faith into a verb. And, you know, all of my secular friends go, I don't believe in faith. And you're crazy for believing in faith.
And I remind them, I don't believe in faith either. I don't believe in faith. I believe with faith. And there's a vast difference. Believing with faith is that focused attention in truth and hope.
And those are things, truth and hope are things that maybe I can't see right now. When I get on an airplane, guess what? I can't see the pilot. I don't know if he's drunk as a skunk or whether he's actually passed the exam. But in truth and hope, I have faith getting on that plane.
And so what we have to do in those moments is, again, preach to ourself truth and hope. What do we know to be true? What is our hope? And we need somebody else in our life, as I often say, to see around the corner when we can't see it. I was speaking with a gentleman that was on the verge of suicide.
And I asked him a question. I said, do you really want to take your life or do you just want the pain to go away? And you know what I have found every time I've asked somebody that question, including this gentleman, nobody wanted to take their life. What they wanted was the pain to go away. And then I was able to say to the gentleman, will you let me be your eyes?
Because I can see something in the future you can't see. And so what I'm going to ask you to do is have some faith in this moment, that you're going to move forward with faith, that you're going to trust me. You're going to believe that I see some truth and hope because you can't see it right now. And I have found those that despair of life, it's not that they want to die. They want the pain to go away.
And that seems like the only option. And so what we have to do as Christ followers is come next to him and say, let me be your eyes. Yeah. Because you can't see it right now, but I can. Yeah.
And again, that's why it's important to take this out of the taboo pile. Because there are many times when... You're breaking up. Oh, can you hear me now? Can you hear me?
Now I can hear you.
Okay. I was going to say, I think that's why it's important to take this topic out of the taboo pile, because there are many times when, like you're saying, people find themselves in that valley of depression. They feel like they can't go to the church where that is our only source of hope and truth is in the church. It's within the word of God. And if we feel like that is not a place for us to find refuge for our depression, for our weariness of soul is really what it is, then that's how you end up with people that do take their lives because they think there's no other option here for me.
And that's not what we want. We want to come alongside one another and say, I'll walk this with you. And sometimes as a church, we need to be prepared for that to be a long walk. Depression is not usually something that that lifts true depression is not something that usually lifts in a week.
Something else that you talk about that I think is interesting. And I'm actually reading another book at the same time as this one. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. I think it's fairly new and it's called reconnected. And it's, it's this guy that actually took a seven week break from all screens and he's a Christian and he actually, he went and lived in a monastery for two weeks and then he went and lived with the Amish people for two weeks.
And then he did three weeks with just his family, but no screens whatsoever. And at the beginning and end, he actually had a brain scan done to see what technology is doing to our brains. But he talks in there about something that he refers to as the speed of God. And what he means by that is the fact that when Jesus was here in human form as God on earth, he walked everywhere. He didn't have a bike.
He didn't have a car. He didn't have an airplane. He walked. He did his whole ministry at walking pace, which they say that the average human can walk about three miles per hour. It's not very fast.
Well, in our day and age, we have information coming to us at light speed. We have information from all over the world coming and putting weight upon our hearts and our minds. And we weren't created for that speed. And you actually talk a little bit about the fact that exhaustion can be a proponent of depression And I can help but think about the fact that the fast pace at which we lead our lives contributes to exhaustion which contributes to whether it spiritual fatigue which is a very real thing. You know, so many times we feel like, oh, I don't have time to read my Bible.
I'm a busy mom or I'm on the go all the time. You know, I have all these business calls to make. But that's how our souls get fed. We can't get fed any other way. How do you correlate that, especially in counseling or as you're pastoring?
How do you correlate kind of encouraging your sheep that God has placed you as the shepherd over? How do you encourage them to find some rest in today's hustle and hustle? Yeah, that's so true. That's so true.
Somebody once said, if Satan can't make you sin, he'll just make you busy. Yeah, that was Elizabeth Elliott that said that. Very true. Yeah, and it's so true because we used to grow up with Little House on the Prairie, and now it's Little House on the Freeway. And our alarm clocks on our nightstands are starter pistols, and that thing fires off and off we go.
And so I'm constantly preaching and trying to model and trying to talk in casual discipleship about the need for rest, the need for breakaway. And resting is godliness for sure. How do I know that? It's because God himself took a whole day to do it. Mm-hmm.
And so it is a form of godliness, and it's a form of surrender. It's prideful to think that I can go full steam 24-7, 365. Yeah. When I think that way, I think I'm better than God. That's the ultimate form of pride.
Yeah. And so trying to help our people understand that we were created to rest. Needing rest wasn't part of the curse. God rested when everything was good. Yeah, that's a good point.
And so we're meant to shut down and shut off. And so, yeah, we I mean, and there's so much study now of just our brain, the plasticity of it, how we're wired and how we begin to create grooves in our in our thinking and in our neurons, our synapses of how they fire and don't fire based on things we're doing or not doing. we know a lot more of the damage that is done to a body when we don't rest. And so we have to keep preaching that to ourselves and our people. I often say you never find in the Gospels where it says, and Jesus was at a full sprint.
Yeah. He never ran anywhere. He showed up late to Lazarus. Yeah. You know, he just wasn't, he wasn't in a hurry.
You know, it never crossed my mind before this moment in talking with you that I think also, especially in America, maybe more than any other country that I can think of off the top of my head, there's just, there's this push to be busy all the time. And it's almost like people think that if you're being busy, then that is what makes you worth something. That that is, that's what means you're a productive person. That's what means you're not lazy. You know, people think that, oh, if they're resting one day a week or if they're saying no to things, they must be lazy or not committed.
But it crosses my mind that the more things we commit ourselves to, the more apt we are to be depressed as well, because there's that many more things that we could possibly fail at. and if we as believers are not tying our identity fully in with who we are in Christ, if we start tying it in with how busy we are or how well we did on this project or how well we did in that church ministry, how many kids came to VBS the year I was being the solicitor for it, if that's what we're tying our identity in, which is easy to do, man, it's easy to start getting discouraged and despairing when all of a sudden everything you're juggling, you know and I'm talking about this from firsthand not not even hypothetical you know I'm I'm queen of busyness that's just the reality and reading reading your book reading the the reconnected book has been a good thing for me to learn like it's okay for me to say I need a nap I need to shut my computer and not not do this right now um you know I mean I've got four kids I homeschool them all. I've got the nonprofit. I do the radio program. Like, I'm not, I'm preaching to the choir here, you know?
And so, but I think it's really easy for us to be less focused on making that calm time to be with the Lord in his word, to reflect our own hearts before him when every nook and cranny is crammed with something. And what a beautiful reminder that he makes us lie down in green pastures. And even one other thing that I want to touch on that I think is great that you talk about in here is the fact that he makes us lie down beside green pastures. He leads us beside still waters. He doesn't make us drink, but he leads us beside those still, calm waters.
And you talk about how a sheep who, I forget how you put it exactly, but you talk about how a sheep can easily be led to polluted water and accept that as what they're going to take in. And that's not what we want to do. Like when we're feeling discouragement, our only true source of reviving our souls is the word of God. It's those still waters.
So how can we make sure that we are not falling for polluted water? Yeah, that's such a great analogy because that's so true, is the shepherd has to lead the sheep to water. They're not naturally inclined to find it on their own. And they have to trust the shepherd to bypass certain ponds because that pond is polluted, and therefore they have to walk a little further. And that's where that trusting the shepherd comes in.
And so what we have to do is make sure that we're drinking fresh water. That's why, you know, the daily intake of God's word is so critical. And notice how I put it. I didn't put a time limit on it, and I didn't put an expectation on it. I just said the daily intake of God's word is so crucial.
We have to be feeding ourselves with the truth. Worship music. One of the things I talk about in the book is how much music can play into bringing hope into our heart of not just reading truth, but singing truth to ourselves. particularly if you want to like a like a double size super extra strength spiritual pill is go out and walk and listen to worship music good worship music where you're hearing the truth sung to you while you're outside and walking oh my goodness that's like extra strength Tylenol right there and and so I I think it's a daily diet it's it's the old garbage in garbage out if you put garbage in your body, you're going to have a garbage body. And the same thing with your mind.
And so I'm like you. I read a lot. I try to read good things. I try to select good theology. I don't have time to read a bunch of garbage stuff.
And so I'm constantly trying to feed my mind with truth, whether I'm singing it, reading it, preaching it, studying it, whatever it may be, I need daily intake of God's Word. Yeah, I think that's the best takeaway that we can have from this, honestly, is that if we want to see the restoration of our souls, which is the conclusion of that one verse in Psalm 23, is that we have to turn to the Lord. We can't be turning to all these different things in the world, which the world wants to give us all of these, really what end up being placebos to our sorrows and to our depression. Really, there's only one thing that satisfies because that's what we were created for. We were created for bringing glory to the Lord and only he understands the intricacies of our mind and our body.
And I wanted to close on a verse here and then I'm going to show them your book and you can tell us where they can get it because I really I truly think everybody needs a copy of this book. And not only should you get a copy of this book, but if you're a pastor, put it in your bookstore. If you're not a pastor, buy an extra copy for a friend, a neighbor, someone that even especially people that are teenagers in their young 20s, this is a great resource for them.
So I'm going to conclude with this verse, which says, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see, and they will put their trust in the Lord.
That's Psalm 41 through 3. And a reminder to those of us that have experienced depression, it is not a weakness to talk about it. It's not a weakness, it can be that new song that God puts in your mouth where you can bring this testimony to the land of the living and say, I was in the miry bog, but God placed my feet on steady rock, took me out of the pit of destruction.
So Pastor Todd, can you tell us where people can find your book, Dark Valleys? Yeah, the easiest place obviously is Amazon, Barnes and Noble, a Christian bookstore distributor, all of those online were on most online platforms. Obviously, the most common is Amazon is the way to get your hands on a copy of that book. All right. I also wanted to say that Pastor Todd was very gracious and has donated several copies for our ministry.
So if you have been blessed by the ministry of Hope in the Morning and you feel led to donate to our ministry. Your donations help keep testimonies on air. They help bring pastors like Pastor Todd on to talk about how we can have hope in the midst of our despair. And they help provide resources for people as well.
So you can go to hopeinthemorning.org. And if you donate during the month that we have your episode play, we will send you a copy as a thank you. You'll get a copy of Dark Valleys.
So Pastor Todd, would you conclude us in prayer today for those that either are walking in the dark valley or walking beside those who are. Absolutely. Thanks so much for letting me be part of this. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your kindness to us.
Thank you for being the great shepherd. And Father, I pray on behalf of those that maybe are listening today and are right in the middle of a dark valley. Father, first and foremost, would you give them hope, just a glimmer of hope today. And Father, we're just looking at today. Why?
Because tomorrow your mercies are going to be new. And so, Father, would you encourage them? And then, Father, for those of us that have come out of a dark valley, may we feast on and feed on the precious Word of God. May we be surrounded by God's people. May we be lifting up God's praises.
And so, Father, Give us a heart of joy. We don't need a feeling. We need a deep down settled confidence that you're in control of every detail of our life. And so, Father, would you bless us with that heart, with that attitude, with that mind. And may we, as Paul says, think on those things.
And, Father, we pray that you would use this program, hope in the morning, to touch many lives and to reach many people with the great truth. that we are a new creation in Christ. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.
Pastor Todd, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing about your wonderful book. Thank you. What a great time. I really, really enjoyed it. Thank you.
I did too. I hope you have a wonderful afternoon. You too. Hope in the Morning is a nonprofit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting, equip those who walk beside them, and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit hopeinthemorning.org.
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