The Peace Of God That Passes All Understanding

[ByGrace]

I hope that you will consider the great damage your words can do to people who need hope. Let's not let them continue to think that they have to suffer, that there are no other options. The God of all grace ministers, even when we hurt.

Helen certainly doesn't need me coming to her defense, she expresses herself quite well. However, I feel the need to say this about the above quote:

I have read and re-read Helen's posts and nowhere do I find her words "damaging," or without hope. In fact, just the opposite! Her words are full of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I just want to share what I've told her in private. . .that she has been a minister of His grace to me. Her words are alive with compassion and sensitivity, and the assurance of God's love and mercy. The knowledge of what she has had to endure and how He has brought her through, is a testimony of God's faithfulness.

Bless you, Helen.

Grace

 

[Daniel David]

If it is not biblical counsel, then it is damaging to a person when this type of issue is being discussed.

It is damaging in the sense that a person might not realize how false ideas are causing pain and other problems.

When life-saving surgery is done, pain is inflicted. That pain is worth it though to save a life. So, taking a Scripture-alone approach on things might come across cold, mean, and hard, but it is just the thing that truly helps.

People confuse beating around the bush, as compassion all the time. If you had a knife and tried to cut your fingers off, I might be seen as mean if I ripped that knife away from you. Only later did you find out that I was helping you.

This is a good picture of counseling. Many people want a quickfix. They want to be reassured that they aren't bad. They don't want to examine themselves. Until a person is willing to hear truth, they will only experience more and more pain.

Here is a classic example:

Person A said some harsh things to Person B. Person B has been bitter for years. Person B is growing more and more bitter each day.

Now, the so-called "compassionate" counselor coddles them and tells them the right they have to be mad. They might even say that they have had enough, they have been blah, blah, blah.

That person does not need "positive reinforcement". That person needs to repent of his bitterness that he has held. No one is ever given the right to be bitter. Until that person repents and forgives, no true healing will occur. You can only suppress guilt so long. Sooner or later, it will destroy you.

 

[Molly]

I agree that there are biblical ways to deal with pain and suffering and I think Paul is a great example of that. He continued to rejoice through his trials and sufferings...he was not depressed...maybe down at times,but the joy of the Lord was with Him and overcame any negative *feelings*. Also,if these feelings are chemical,how are they(the depression and such) triggered by circumstances? Maybe we are not responding corectly to difficulties. We are trying to deal with them in our own strength,but not the Lord's....we run to every other area of help except the One who can really help....

I see too many times people get themselves all out of whack spiritually because they feel they just can't deal with the pain of life,we have to trust God. In and of ourselves,we are incapable of dealing with the serious of some pains,but God can help us and His word is the answer.

Molly

 

[Helen]

Preach, surgery is man helping man. Using the gifts God has given him and his own experience, the doctor is able to cut the cancer out of the patient. Afterwards the pain is modified by pain medication. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy follow. Along with medications to control the nausea caused by the chemo particularly.

The doctor does not try to tell the patient that feeling pain is wrong. He knows the pain will come. He has medications for it. We know that pain medications speed the healing process.

God knows that some of what the person must go through, or is going to go through because of mistakes either of his own or someone else's, is going to cause pain. Our Great Physician does not -- anywhere in His Word -- call pain a sin.

Nor is ANYONE here saying God's Word is not the final and only complete answer.

What we are saying is that sometimes there are deep valleys of depression that God leads some of us through. And we are also saying that these times will lead to greater maturity in Him and trust even when we are so shaken and exhausted with the pain that we are not sure of anything at all. He walks us through. Sometimes He picks us up and carries us for a bit.

Walking through that valley of pain is no way at any time a sin. Maybe what caused the pain is a sin. And maybe not. Maybe it was someone else's sin. Maybe our own. The sin is forgiven. It was forgiven on the Cross. In the meantime, however, the consequences of whatever caused that pain must be dealt with.

If I tell a toddler not to come near the stove while I am cooking, and he does anyway, and touches it, and gets his hand burned, the disobedience was what was wrong. The pain is not wrong -- it is expected. If the child did not feel pain, I would know something was seriously physically wrong.

If an arsonist decided to burn down the house, and that same toddler was badly burned, but survived, he would have the pain of recovery and a number of surgeries to help him recover and then live a life with as much freedom of motion as possible considering the scar tissue. That child's pain is not a sin! Nothing he did which resulted in his getting burned was a sin. Nevertheless, he has a tremendous amount of pain to go through and healing is going to take a very long time.

Again, and again, and again -- depression is pain. It is deep, searing emotional pain with inhibits your functioning as surely as physical pain does. It is NOT a sin. It is the consequence of something that has happened. And if an emotional arsonist has set your life on fire and you have been badly burned, you are not at fault in any way for what caused your pain.

And it will take time to heal.

Of course God is the answer. He is the answer physically, too. But no doctor is going to look at a burned child and refuse to do anything but pray and preach. And no friend or Christian is going to look at an emotionally burned life and refuse to do anything but pray or preach.

Anyone with any heart at all in that situation is going to do everything he or she can to help the other person along.

God may have designed our bodies to heal, but the arm still holds the crutch for the broken foot. Helping each other along using the benefit of whatever skills and experience the Lord has given us is not denying Him -- it is Him working through us for each other.

Don't just 'wish someone well' and refuse to feed or clothe him.

My husband has adopted a phrase which he read in a poem many years ago: "I'm just the suit of clothes God wears."

By implying all through this thread that non-physically initiated depression is a sin, some here have -- I hope inadvertently -- been telling those who have walked through those valleys that either their pain was not really real, or that they were wrongfully responsible for it and by their own faith and trust in God should be able to elevate themselves out of it.

Both of those messages are damaging and depressing in and of themselves. The pain is real. The helplessness the depressed person feels is real. And our friendship, support, and encouragement should be just as real as our prayers for them and time in Scripture with them.

God can heal any physically injured person without a doctor. He can heal any emotionally injured person without someone else, too. But that's not usually the way He works. He most often seems to work through us who are His.

Which means we can either sit in judgment over each other, refusing to allow Him to work through us, or we can humble ourselves to be servants, considering others better than ourselves, and worthy of all the help we can give them.

 

[Daniel David]

Helen, it is only because you equate depression with pain that you say I think pain is sin. Pain is not sin. You could say that pain ultimately is a result of sin. Anyway, depression is sin. Despair is sin. Responding negatively is sin.

Pain in and of itself is not sin though. I hope that helps the discussion move on.

 

[Ed Edwards]

Some seem to be talking apples.
Some seem to be talking oranges.
Some seem to be talking pineapples.
Anybody want to talk about fruit salad?

Titus 3:9 (KJV1873):

But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies,
and contentions, and strivings about the law;
for they are unprofitable and vain.

 

[WonderingOne]

What I am saying is that depression is always a state of mind brought on by unbelief and the resultant disobedience to God.

Mark, Mark, Mark. I would strongly beg to differ here. I have had two strokes. Strokes affect the brain. Clinical depression is a common after effect of a stroke. It is a physical condition, and must be treated, in the same way one would receive treatment for a broken arm or a case of psoriasis. I assure you that the depression I am being treated for has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with unbelief or disobedience to God. At the very least, this is a very reckless comment. Please research the physical causes for depression before you continue to make statements of this nature. Thanks.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Originally posted by Helen:
I don't think you have a clue about depression.

Did you stop to think that perhaps it is you who doesn't have a clue? I don't mean to be overly blunt, but this is very easy statement to make when you don't have to back it up. From our side, it seems pretty clear that you are the one without "a clue." You think the same of us. But these kind of charges don't make any headway and are out of place in this discussion. Discuss facts, not people.

 

[Daniel David]

Great point Larry. You are a great Moderator. I appreciate your posts.

I am going to close this thread. There have been many posts on counseling, depression, and psychology recently. I would like to encourage everyone to just take a break, perhaps reread everything, and then someone bring it up again shortly. I think it will be best for all people.

I will close with the words of Paul:

2 Corinthians 4:8-9
8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair ;

9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed--

Thank you Paul for those words of hope.

 

[Daniel David]

Just want to let everyone know that this has been reopened.

 

[John3v36]

Is depression sin? Elijah was depressed. He said " O LORD, take away my life". The Lord handled it very compassionately.
God did not come down and say, "You lazy no good steward where is your faith?

Where we mess up is in taking these problems outside the church. We have every thing we need to handle depression in the church. We need to be in one another lives.
"13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;" (Heb 3)
Over and over again we are told to encourage one another, to cry with those who cry, to laugh with those who laugh. We don't need to take our problems to the world.

Saint John

 

[Pastor Larry]

Originally posted by John3v36:
Is depression sin? Elijah was depressed. He said " O LORD, take away my life". The Lord handled it very compassionately.
God did not come down and say, "You lazy no good steward where is your faith?

God also corrected his faulty thinking. He did not allow him to continue on his pity party. He said, "I have 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal." He confronted him with the truth and called on him to change his thought patterns and get over himself.

We have every thing we need to handle depression in the church

I agree.

 

[John3v36]

Originally posted by John3v36:
Is depression sin? Elijah was depressed. He said " O LORD, take away my life". The Lord handled it very compassionately.
God did not come down and say, "You lazy no good steward where is your faith?

Originally posted by Pastor Larry: God also corrected his faulty thinking. He did not allow him to continue on his pity party. He said, "I have 7000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal." He confronted him with the truth and called on him to change his thought patterns and get over himself.

The above is true but before He corrected his faulty thinking he gave him food, rest and confort.
Then came the teaching time.

Saint John