Finding God When You Need Him Most - Experiencing God When You're Troubled and Depressed, Part 2

Are you depressed, or do you know someone that is depressed?

They may not even know it, but they're blue, their countenance is down, they're negative, and you can see that they're kind of moping around. Today we have a word from God for those that are struggling with depression. Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, we're just over halfway through our series, Finding God When You Need Him Most. So if you've missed any part of this series along the way, catch up anytime at livingontheedge.org or by listening on the Chip Ingram app. Well, if you're ready, let's join Chip for part two of his message, Experiencing God When You're Troubled and Depressed from Psalm 77.

How do you respond when you have the normal type of up and down, occasional depression that everyone experiences, even the most godly? And that is the answer given in the rest of this psalm, verses 10 to 20. Follow along, and here's what you're going to see. Here's the second life lesson. I'll give it to you and then see if you don't see it in the psalm. Second life lesson. Not only are times of depression normal, even with godly people on occasion, but secondly, taking time to recall God's specific blessings in our past provides perspective and peace in the present. When you feel yourself slipping, when you're starting to go into the tank, here's the key. Taking time.

It won't come. Taking time to recall God's specific blessings in your past provides perspective and peace in the present. Notice, let's pick it up in verse 10. Look what the psalmist does. And let's remember verses one through nine. I mean this guy's in the dark night of the soul. He's in the tunnel except there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Notice what he does, verses 10 to 12. He says, then I thought.

He's willfully in his mind, not letting his mind drift, not letting the world and the depressive thoughts taking downhill. He says, then I thought. To this I will appeal. The years of the right hand of the most high.

He said, wait a second. I gotta get a hold of myself. To this I will appeal. I'm going to think back to who God really is and what he's done in my past. And the little phrase here, most high, is an interesting name of God.

It's El Elyon. And it means God as creator and God as protector. He said, to this I will appeal. I'm going to go back to who God is as the creator of all and as the protector. Now notice what he does. Notice the word remember, meditate or consider.

Look where his thought processes go. I will remember the deeds of the Lord or Yahweh. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.

I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. If you have a pen or pencil, pull it out. Let me have you circle about four or five words. Circle the word I will appeal. That's a thought process.

He's looking backwards. Then circle the word I remember. Then next I remember. Then I will meditate.

And then circle consider. There in two, three verses, you have one, two, three, four, five instances. He is taking control of his thoughts.

He's not letting them slide. Did you notice the phrase I will, I will, I will, I will. He didn't say I feel, I feel, I feel. When you're depressed, you've got plenty of feelings.

They're no good. You've got to make choices. You willfully take time.

It's a choice. To do what? Remember. So how do you, how do you do this?

Let me give you the how to here. Stop. Take time to remember. When you're sliding into depression, when you're feeling like, you know, the clouds are getting dark, when you are going down, down, doobie, doo, down, down, right?

What do you do? And I don't know about you, when I get there, you can almost feel it coming in. It's just like the fog. It kind of creeps in and you see it and you say, oh gosh. And then you say it's out there and then it gets closer. And the closer it gets, it's kind of like, I feel kind of good to be depressed right now.

You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I deserve to be depressed. I mean, and everyone should feel sorry for me.

And I should get attention when I'm depressed. In fact, come on in fog, you know? And you've got to stop it. You've got to stop it and keep the fog at bay. How? Stop. Take time to remember. That's what he did.

Now let me give you some very specific ways to do that. 1994, in August, I mean, I'm not in a good situation. These first two weeks were designed to study God's word. I don't even want to pray.

I don't want to read the Bible and I'm on study break. Not good. Not good. And so I got up and I went to a little, I don't know, it's a McDonald's or Burger King up there and I said, God, I just, I need to reconnect with your presence. I know I've obeyed you but I've obeyed you out of my will. I've trusted you but my feelings are just, I don't have any, I'm numb.

I don't feel anything. And I found a little phrase in the Psalms called his unfailing love. And I took out a little colored marker and I said, God, I'm going to get up every day and I'm just going to willfully choose to read and every time the phrase unfailing love happens in the Psalms, I'm going to circle it and I'm going to underline it and I just want you to pour some love. I just want to believe that you, no matter what, love me. And for ten days that's all I did.

I got up in the morning and I'd read. Just keep reading, reading through the Psalms and I looked at what became after unfailing love and before unfailing love and I just let it kind of seep into my soul and reminded myself, it's not my performance. It's not who I am.

I'm not the center of the universe. God loves me. God loves me. And his love is unfailing. It's never going to go away.

He cares. And I willfully had to do that. I had to remember. Second thing that I do on a real regular basis when I feel the fog of depression coming in, I call it the napkin exercise. I pull out a napkin and I ask, what great things did God do today? And I start writing. You start thinking about it. He did a lot of things you take for granted. And if I can't come up with much, I say, what did he do great this week? And then I start writing. If I'm still having trouble, what did he do this month? And I can usually fill a napkin and what it does, it forces me to get objective. God, this and my son and I met this person and this person came to Christ and this was an answer to prayer. When we get depressed, our thinking, we just start going on tilt.

Can't go there. A third thing that has been very helpful for me is I keep a journal so I can process. Often this unresolved anger and all this kind of junk, we don't deal with it and we push it down and then we wake up two days later and depressed and don't know why. And so I write things out as soon as I feel things jumbled.

And then the other thing that does is that when I really get in the tank, I need some objectivity. I can pull out last weeks or last months and say, okay, this, this, this, this. And in my journal, I've got check marks, date, answer to prayer. This was a huge problem.

It was impossible. And two weeks later, it's got a check mark, a date, this is what God did. A check mark, a date, this is what God did.

A check mark, guess what? I'm thinking, hmm, if he did it last month, last year, now I get stacks of these journals. If I get really down, I'm remembering.

I willfully take time to remember what God has done. When's the last time you got out the movie camera? Well, better yet, when's the last time you ever watched some of those movies that you made? You ever wonder why everyone's got these cameras? Are they used to all the time?

No one watches them. Go home today, make some popcorn, and put on an old vacation. Everyone's so concerned about the wedding, the photographer. And we pay all this money, when's the last time you looked at your wedding pictures?

Go get some pictures out and look at them and stop and remember. There is a good God and he has been good to you. It's critical, but that's not all. Notice verses 14, 13 through 16. He's going to move from remembering God's acts. He's going to stop and now he's going to look.

Notice what he does. He goes, your ways, O God, are holy. What God is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles. You display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm, you redeemed your people. The descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Underline the word holy, underline the word performs miracles and underline the word redeemed.

Do you see what happened? He's in the tank and he's so depressed and then he says, I'm going to appeal to God, I'm going to start remembering. So he makes his list of all the specific things God did and that list of God's great acts moves him to what? God's ways, his character, who he really is. And what's he remember?

Number one? Oh, yeah, that's right. God is holy. The word holy means he's an unapproachable light. He's all powerful. He's totally other. He's sovereign.

He's in control. But not only that, he performed miracles. He's holy, he's great. And then the third part of his character that he remembers is he's caring. That little word for redeemer.

It's a Hebrew word and if you understand Hebrew culture, read the book of Ruth. The only person who can redeem someone is a relative. He looks at God as not only being this awesome God, but as a friend, as a father. He redeemed. He bought us back because we matter, because we're part of his family.

And now he's gone from being in the tank and saying, God, where are you? To remembering God's acts that move him to who God is. God's holy. God's great. And that great holy God cares about me.

Second little how-to for this principle is look, get a fresh perspective. Here's an axiom that you just need to take with you. When you have a big problem, you have a very small God. And if you have a very big God, you have a very small problem. See, the way it works is you have this problem and it's out there, right there, right? And then you, here's what I, focus on it.

Really work at it. Focus on, boy, I don't like, man, I'm really accepting of this job situation, this relationship situation, this unresolved issue, this parent, this child, keep it up there, keep it up there, keep it up there. I'll tell you what, this problem is really, now what? All of life is looked through the lens of this problem. Or you can pull that problem back in light of a holy all-knowing, all-powerful, miracle-working God who knows everything. You can look at that problem in light of that.

And guess what you get? Perspective. At the heart of all depression is a loss of perspective, a loss of hope. When I'm depressed, I have this distorted thinking, it'll never get better. This relationship stinks and it'll always be terrible. We've got financial trouble and we'll always have financial trouble. I've got a problem in this area and I'll always have a problem. Therefore, why try, right?

Who cares? That's a lie. You must take time to remember God's specific acts in the past in order to get perspective and peace in the present. Where does it start? You stop and you remember his acts.

You remember. Second, you look and you get a fresh perspective. But when you get a fresh perspective, he doesn't end here. He gets very, very specific because he's told us about God's ways in general. It's nice to know God is holy, God is great, and God is caring. But now in verses 16 to 20, he's going to apply it and he's going to say, God's been holy to me. God's been great to me.

God's been caring to me. Look at verse 16 to 20. It says, the waters saw you. What an interesting poetic phrase. Oh God, the waters saw you. And then this next word is, they just shrunk back. The very depths were convulsed.

I mean, he's looking at this, the creation here. The clouds poured down water. The skies resounded with thunder. Your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind. Your lightning lit up the world.

The earth trembled and quaked. He's going back to that concept of God, El Jan. He is the God who is creator and the God who is deliverer or protector. And this is written in the context, you need to remember that Israel, where did they live? Their context is in among the Canaanites. The Canaanites' great God was called Baal. And Baal was the God of the storm, the God of thunder, the God of the elements.

And they were living in a world where all these false gods were all around them and all the other nations saying our God is strongest. He's coming back. He gets perspective. And he's thinking, wow, our God doesn't do that.

He's above all that. He's the creator, my creator. But notice he goes on. He says, your path led through the sea. Your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. He's going to go back to where every writer of the Old Testament always goes back when their back is against the wall.

They go back to God as creator, number one, and God as deliverer, number two. What's the reference? When can you ever remember in Israel's history where their back was against the wall, where they were being chased by enemies, and they were, uh-oh, we've got a problem. And now there's a sea, a red sea in front of them. We're trapped. We're surrounded.

It's an impossible situation if there's ever a time to get depressed, that was it. I mean, children of Israel. Can you imagine being a regular Joe on that trip? Let's see, boy, all those 10 plagues, that was pretty cool. You know, Moses, he and Aaron, they're doing some really neat stuff. And Pharaoh let us go. And we took our kids. We took our animals. And the unleavened bread, I still don't get that part of it. And here we're gone.

Here we're gone. And there's this pillar by day and fire by night. It's like, whoa, man, God's really real. And then you get up and here's this huge body of water. And then the scouts come back and say, Pharaoh, his army, his chariots, his soldiers, they're on the way.

And they have you surrounded this way. And the only thing is water this way. All of a sudden, you know, Moses, this was not a good idea.

This is dumb. There's no way out. We have no hope. And what did God do? He made a way where there was no way. He took the waters and he heaped it up on both sides. He made a pathway and his footprints, he personally carried his people through, but you couldn't see it.

He did it invisibly. And they were safe. And the enemies were destroyed. They were saved.

They were delivered. And Israel in times of conflict, and this Psalmist goes back and he drives a stake and basically says, God made me and God saved me. And I don't know what I'm going through right now, but it can't get any bigger than not being made and it can't get any bigger than the deliverance that occurred at the Red Sea.

Now let me ask you a question. What are you facing? Where do you struggle with where you feel so hemmed in where it seems so impossible that you think God just can't make a way?

And so you're depressed and you're hopeless and you're listless and you don't want to get with it and you're not motivated. May I encourage you to go back to God as your creator and then especially for every single person here, there's one snapshot I always go back to. Oberlin College.

In a gymnasium or auditorium with six hundred other athletes. The full back of Illinois has just sung the Lord's Prayer. I have understood the gospel for the first time in my life coming from a non-Christian home. And I heard Revelation 320 and the Spirit of God has illumined my mind and I now understand. Behold, Chip, I stand at the door of your heart and knock.

If you will open it, I will come in to you and I will live or sup with you, fellowship with you and you with me. I will give you a new life, Chip. I'll forgive your sin, Chip. I can change you, Chip. I will take all your sin and move it as far as the east is from the west. Any person who is in Christ is a new creature. I want to save you, Chip, from your sin.

I want to deliver you. Not understanding the whole picture but realizing this is a defining moment of truth. And in that auditorium with all those athletes, I said, God, I don't know much about this. I didn't even know for sure whether you really exist.

But I've seen real love here. I've heard your word taught for the first time and I believe today that Jesus died for me. Whatever it means for him to come into my life right now, forgive me, cleanse me and make me a new person, will you do that?

See, I don't know where you're at but you need to go back to that date. You need to go back to the day that you were delivered, the day that you were saved and realize the almighty, all powerful God of the universe did not start something with you that he's going to bail out on. And that's what the psalmist did.

And when he did that, he learned this final lesson. He will deliver you. He will deliver you.

That's hope. He will not deliver the guy next to you, the woman next to you. He'll deliver you in your situation.

Now, there's one thing we ought to say before we go on and let me give you a little homework assignment. That is if you have never had a point in time in your life where you are not only aware of God that he's the creator but that he is your deliverer and your savior, I would assume that God brought me to this room this day to hear this message and I would ask Jesus to deliver me from my sin. Right in your chair, right where you're at, in your heart, I would say, Jesus said, unless you become like a child, where you simply say, you know, me running my life doesn't work. My sin is keeping me from a holy God.

I've worked it out my way and I have lots of depression. And I know that God's not going to snap his fingers or wave a wand and make everything rosy tomorrow. But I need a friend who's all powerful, all knowing, who will always be committed, who loves me, who's the sovereign Lord of the universe and history. And I need him to forgive me and come into my life and change me and make me the man or woman that he wants me to be.

If you've never done that, then you need to do that before you leave. You can just pray. You can pray right now in your heart. God will hear. He'll hear.

And you will now have the resources to not just overcome depression, but the resources to become the person that you long to become. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, Experiencing God When You Are Troubled and Depressed, from his series, Finding God When You Need Him Most. Through this study in the book of Psalms, Chip helps us develop a biblically grounded perspective toward our most difficult circumstances and experiences. Hear what God wants us to know when things aren't going well, and why we can totally trust his promise to be there for us again and again and again.

To learn more about this series, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org, the Chip Engram app, or call 888-333-6003. Chip's with me in studio now, and Chip, the vast majority of this next generation seem really confused about morality and the overall purpose of their lives. But there's a growing movement of mature Christians wanting to come alongside these young people and intentionally disciple them. We'll take a few minutes and explain how we can reach the next generation, because this is a pressing concern facing the Church right now.

Well, Dave, that's right. Never in my lifetime have I seen such a response to the need for discipleship or a passion among God's people to reach the next generation. I'm absolutely convinced that if we're going to reach the next generation, it's going to require that first we speak their language, second we meet them where they are, and third and most important, we model life-giving relationships. We at Living on the Edge are stepping out like never before in this area, and we need your help. Would you prayerfully consider giving to Living on the Edge to help us reach our kids and your kids, our grandkids and yours? Every dollar you give between now and December 31 will be matched dollar for dollar, doubling your impact as we help parents, grandparents, and pastors disciple the next generation.

Thank you for praying and giving whatever God leads you to. You can go right now to LivingOnTheEdge.org and make your gift. If this is something you are passionate about, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003 to make a gift. Your support will help us create tools and resources for parents, grandparents, and pastors to effectively disciple this next generation. And as Chip said, every gift we receive up until midnight on December 31 will be matched dollar for dollar. That number again is 888-333-6003, or go to LivingOnTheEdge.org.

App listeners, tap donate. Well, Chip, at the end of today's message, you suggested that when we feel deep discouragement or depression coming, it's important we find something to do. But isn't that just avoiding the real issues? I mean, can't busyness keep us from addressing what's really going on?

Well, Dave, it certainly can. And I think sometimes we get very simplistic in how we deal with a number of issues. And I think there's a lot of, some would call it, psychobabble or self-help teaching that has been so mixed with biblical teaching. Sometimes we're not sure where one starts and the other ends.

And there's probably a handful of people listening to this message who are saying, Chip is one of those psychobabble guys. Well, my background in undergraduate and graduate work was in psychology. And I've studied depression and have been real close to this. And so I want people to know that there's a real difference between clinical medical depression when things are happening physiologically in your body. And you need to get help.

There's times where people actually do need medication to get their brain working in a way so they can process truth and act in ways. But today what I'm talking about is the Psalm 77, I Feel Blue. And what you're doing is you can feel yourself getting low. We've all been there.

And the motivation goes low and condemnation starts. And what I want to tell you is that if you willfully are getting busy, you're saying, I'm going to choose to get busy. I'm not going into denial.

In fact, I'm very aware. I'm getting depressed. I'm getting not very motivated. I'm tempted to eat. I'm tempted to log onto the internet. I'm tempted to sit in front of the TV and watch four Netflix movies with four bags of potato chips. I'm tempted to do all kind of things that about six or eight hours from now, I'll be really sorry I did.

It's to them that I'm saying, get busy, write a letter, take a walk, make a phone call, visit a hospital, do anything that's positive. Because what you have to do is you got to break that. And there's a little window when you're feeling those emotions that if you would go work out, I mean, most of the times that I work out, I don't feel like it, but I always feel better afterwards. People always are interesting to me. They'll say, oh, you know, you teach a number of services on the weekend. You must be exhausted. So do you take a afternoon on Sundays?

And I say, no. And they go, what? I said, what do you do?

Sometimes before I even eat lunch, I go into my garage, I get on that elliptical and I get as sweaty as I can for 30 to 45 minutes because those endorphins kick in because yeah, you know, the adrenaline has been in me. I've counseled people. I've spoken three or four times.

What I've learned is I get depressed after that if I don't get busy and do something. The teaching in this series are designed to practically help people with these kinds of issues. Thanks, Chip. Hey, before we go, let me remind you of an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll hear that day's extended teaching anytime you want. Well, for Chip and everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.