Dealing with Depression | Rapp Report Weekly 0027 | Striving for Eternity

All right. All right. Well, welcome to another rap report.

This week we're going to talk about, well, a topic most people don't want to talk about in the church, actually not even outside of the church, but yet many people struggle with it alone.

We're going to talk about the topic of depression. So you're really going to want to stay tuned.

Even if you think you're not suffering from depression, you're going to find that many people in your church do.

Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

All right. Well, welcome back to The Rap Report. We've had some special guests on.

You guys have been listening. We've had conversations about the role of the pastor with Gabe Hughes.

This week we had a special episode that was supposed to drop a couple of weeks ago, dropped midweek.

We gave you an extra with Pastor Josh Bice. And so now we have someone who's not a pastor, but is going to have a lot of good information.

And I want to introduce to you, to my listeners, Amy, and we already talked, I'm going to probably get the name wrong, but I'm going to try.

Amy Mantravada. Yeah. Okay. Correct me. You, you started so strong.

It's Mantravadi. Mantravadi. That's what it is. But you got the first part right. Usually that's what trips people up.

Yeah. Well, so, so Amy and I, and Amy, did you recognize the voice by the way, on the intro?

No, I did not. Oh, well that was one John Wilkinson.

Oh! And so you know that name. Yeah. Now bringing that name up,

I think, don't you and I have a little beef, I think, right? We should at least.

You and I are honorary members of the council. That is correct. And yet have you been invited to, they've been having meetings again.

Have you been invited? So a few months back, John Wilkinson did say to me, hey, you haven't been coming to the council meetings, or you go to Kavaged, and I forget,

I probably gave him some lame excuse, like I've got a bunch of stuff going on, but yeah,

I haven't heard since then. And Brian Forbes, who's also in my

Reformed Baptist discussion group, hasn't mentioned anything about it. So yeah, I'm not really feeling the love so much these days.

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think the council's in session, but they don't want their honorary members to be there.

Right? Maybe it's council members only. Well, I am a council member, because when

I was on, I told them that at the beginning of Star Wars, Episode Three, Revenge of the

Sith, when Anakin is asked to be on the Jedi Council, they only give him sort of a pseudo position on the council.

They won't make him the rank of master. And that's when everything bad that happened in that movie started happening, and he turned into Darth Vader.

So I was made an honorary member of the council, but they still haven't really incorporated me and acknowledged my talents.

So I could be - Bad things are ready to happen for the council, huh? You know,

I'm being tempted by the dark side daily. I don't think anyone can predict what will happen.

Yeah, and for folks who are not familiar with the council, the council used to be a council of Google Plus. They used to do a live video after Matt and I would do our show, and then they would turn it into a podcast, and Amy and I used to get on there every once in a while, and it was just a free -for -all.

It was a discussion on different topics. Usually on Sunday nights, they'd take wherever Matt and I left off, and it would be a free -for -all.

And like where Matt and I were a controlled environment, theirs was not. And folks who are regular listeners know

Vincent and John, their regular voices here, and they're two of the members of the council that started that.

And so Amy and I used to like to get in there. We haven't been in a while, but they are recording again, and I don't think they're podcasting it, but they are doing it,

I think, on Discord. And so that's where I think I first heard of you was in the council.

And so you have, so let's start off for folks who don't know you. You have a book out, at least one that I remember, and it was,

I don't know if he, I know you're I think working on a second, but there are chronicles, right?

The Chronicles of Maude was the period. Yes. So this is a series of historical fiction novels that I've been writing about a real person.

Her name was Empress Maude or sometimes called Empress Matilda. She lived in England and for a while in Germany during the 12th century, which is around the period of the

Crusades. So she is noted for being the first, and this is a spoiler alert, so put it on mute if you don't want to hear, she's noted for being the first woman to ever make a claim to the throne of England in her own right.

So that's part of what makes her so interesting to history that she fought a decade long civil war with her cousin for the throne of England.

But I became interested in her after I discovered that I was descended from her.

I did a lot of research in my genealogy and I had never heard of her when I found her name in my line, but then

I did some research and said, wow, she's got such a fascinating life. So I'm writing a series of three novels that tell the story of her life from her perspective.

And the first one was released almost a year ago now.

It's available as an ebook on Amazon or you can have a hard copy printed.

And then I've completed the draft of the second one. I have someone set to edit that next month and then we'll see what happens from there.

And then I'm sort of working a little here, a little there on the third one. So yeah, that's the main kind of writing that I do.

And then I've also done, I have a blog that I run and I've stepped away from that for most of this year to focus on the novels, but I write about various Christian topics on the blog.

And I'm going to link that in the show notes. As long as people can spell your last name, they can easily get to it, but it's basically just your name .com.

Amy Martavadi. A -M -Y -M -A -N -T -R -A -V -A -D -I .com.

I was just trying to get, make sure I got the pronunciation right. It's okay. You'll get it in the new heavens and the new earth.

Yes, I'm waiting for that. So you have some blog articles out there and so what

I would like to do, I'll play a commercial after that. I want to talk about the topic of depression.

It's something that you and I both have struggled with and I think there's a lot more people in the church that struggle with it than most know.

So I want to discuss that after this commercial. Okay, and if I was smart,

I would have had my copy of that book right here so I could show it, but oh no, I don't. Amy's going to show off her book.

I have my books over my shoulder, but I don't have that one.

I did contribute to that one. You can also get that book if you're interested at Striving for Eternity store, strivingforeternity .org.

So Amy, this is a topic, depression. It's one that most people don't really like to talk about and I've noticed that in the church, at least what

I've noticed in being in church many years, in seminary and counseling classes, we'll discuss it, but I don't see much discussed outside of counseling sessions type of thing within the church unless the pastor struggles with it.

That's the only time I've seen it. And yet when we look through history, I mean, you can look at almost any of the greats that you think of,

Martin Luther, Calvin, even Charles Spurgeon struggled greatly with depression and I talked about this a little bit with Gabe Hughes when

I had him on as far as pastors with burnout, how you can suffer with depressions.

Of course, he of course was just saying how great his church was and he doesn't suffer from any of that and the rest of us that have pastored and are just like being jealous because we didn't experience that.

But give a little bit of your background as much as you want to share so folks understand your background and I'm going to share a little bit of mine as well so they understand why we're bringing this up and how it affects folks.

Well, my background in terms of depression is when

I was in college, I went through a period of ill health and a difficult time losing a member of my family.

It was the first time I'd lost someone that closely related to me and sort of out of that period,

I began to struggle a lot with both depression and anxiety and I know we're focusing on depression in this podcast but one thing

I usually say is depression and anxiety tend to be pretty closely linked.

It's quite common to see people have aspects of both of them so that's why I mentioned depression and anxiety but I really struggled for a period there in college and fortunately

I had some very good friends that were able to help me through that period and also my family was very supportive of me during that period.

I had a lot of people praying for me and so I was able to sort of make it through that first initial difficulty and since then,

I mean that was more than a decade ago now, I've had significant periods where I've been relatively normal and not had much of a struggle but particularly if I have some big life transition or a particularly stressful period,

I do tend to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety once again and particularly last year,

I was going through a lot of physical difficulties. I had a condition that they were not able to diagnose right away so I was going to all these different specialists having various tests and it was a pretty stressful experience and I was spending a lot of time just at home feeling sick, you know, just laying on the couch because I couldn't do really anything else and as part of that period,

I began to really have a significant struggle with depression again. Probably, you know, it's hard to compare because, you know, it never is exactly the same but I would say probably this past year has been my most significant period of depression.

I've had more difficult anxiety in the past but in terms of the depression, this is probably been my most difficult year so that's sort of my background that I've had with that in terms of my general background.

I grew up in a Christian family in Michigan. I went to a Christian college,

Taylor University in Indiana. I did my grad school in the UK and I then went to live for a while in Washington DC where I met my husband.

The Air Force transferred him to Ohio and so he retired from the Air Force but we're still here in Ohio and I work from home doing my writing.

That's what I'm up to now. I want to definitely get to later on in the show some of the things that helped you through the depression.

For my background and I know you and I didn't talk about this so much but my background, most of my depression came out of ministry related things where it sounds like yours is more from anxiety.

Mine was ministry related. My first depression that I went into was

I was in a church for about, well actually when it started. I was there about nine months after it began and had been there for half dozen plus years and I knew every single person that was in that church as they came in and discipled many of them and we brought in a pastor who wasn't qualified for ministry and I picked up on that unfortunately kind of quick and when

I tried to work with him on things I saw, he went into immediate damage control and started to go after me so that no one would hear anything that I would say.

It was very interesting. I learned a lot from him in a bad way but he immediately used the argument of being divisive and that way if you actually say anything it proves his point which was very creative.

It was great politically but what ended up happening was I had to leave the church to prevent a split because the only choice that I felt

I had was to stay in the church and cause a split and I love the church too much.

I believe too much in the unity of the church to allow myself being the reason that there would be a split so I chose to leave the church as hard as it was and then

I made a decision that I wasn't going to really say anything bad or I didn't want to say anything that would cause problems in the church or possibly give others a reason to think there's issues and it was a period of loneliness.

I went from being involved in these people's lives every week on a regular basis to no contact at all and I went through a good year or two of depression after that and I had come out of that and we'll talk later on how that occurred but I came out of that and I wouldn't say deep depression.

I was kind of just always kind of bobbing up and down in it but after that I got into another church situation, similar thing where I had to leave and when

I left it was just again not having anybody to do so much of my life is discipling others and there was no one there and the fact that I could leave and people weren't trying to reach out to find out why was

I think the thing that hurt the most. People I poured my life into but they didn't seem as interested sometimes to pour it back and for some that did

I was so tentative to not want to say anything that I was kind of I put a hedge up and because of the counseling that I have and because of the training that I have from my seminary,

I knew what I needed to do and yet going through it has actually helped me more with counseling people in depression because knowing the thing you need to do and doing it are two very different things and so one of the things

I want to talk about is you and I both kind of struggle with it from our different perspectives. What are some ways if you're in church?

Well, let me ask this first. Do you think there's more people in church that struggle with depression than let on?

I think there's no question that there are a lot more people struggling with this than we would think because it's part of the nature of depression that it's a very isolating condition.

It's a condition that can make people feel guilty and ashamed and particularly in the church when people feel that you know, they're supposed to be happy and have a joy in their faith and you know, they come into a church service where the songs we sing are all very happy and upbeat, which is great.

I mean, we should be happy and upbeat about our faith, but there can be a subtle pressure on people who are experiencing great pain to not vocalize that for fear of sort of bringing other people down.

I know when I've been struggling with depression, I've been very hesitant to talk to other people about it for various reasons.

Sometimes because you fear some of the comments you might get from people that are not very well informed.

Sometimes because even to talk about it is difficult. And yeah, there are just different, it's a condition that sort of causes you to almost self -sabotage because one of the things that causes depression is isolation and loneliness.

And it sounds like that's something you've experienced in your life when you were cut off from the community you were a part of that was likely part of the reason that you were experiencing this depression.

And unfortunately, when you have depression, you also sometimes don't feel like going out, don't feel like participating in social functions or you're afraid to open up to other people for various reasons.

So you end up in a way sabotaging yourself because what you really need is community and fellowship, but fear of allowing people to see your vulnerability, allowing them to see that you don't have it, you know, quote unquote all together, that you're not the perfect spiritual example, happy all the time that people are expecting.

It can cause you to cut yourself off further, which only makes the condition worse.

So this is something we need to be aware of in the church. It's a condition from the statistics

I've seen. Women are slightly more likely or a bit more likely than men to get depression, but they're more likely than men to seek out some kind of treatment, whether that be medical or counseling.

And there can be, I think there's still in our culture is a bit of a stigma because depression is seen as a mental illness as opposed to a physical illness.

There is a stigma that surrounds that. And unfortunately, that sometimes keeps people from pursuing the help that they need and makes the situation worse than it would be if they had been able to seek some kind of assistance.

And in my case, in my second case, it was harder when I'm in a church and I'm now as a pastor or one of the pastors, you know, pastor's not supposed to struggle with this.

And then I would read of guys like Spurgeon and he would talk about a deep depression and you're like, oh, he struggled with this too.

And it is, I mean, the loneliness you brought up, the fact that it is self -sabotaging.

I don't think people recognize that. I mean, I knew enough to know that I needed the fellowship.

I needed to find ways to have fellowship. I knew one of the first things

I did was tell my wife. I mean, when I could recognize I was going into a depression,

I would tell her and tell her what I, I would actually counsel her how to counsel me.

Which is, so in that case, it's a little different because I, you know, not everyone has a background in counseling.

The thing though, I think we can spot people, even though, like you said,

Pail, try to put on that happy face. There are signs I think we can see with folks that could be struggling with it.

If we're getting involved in people's lives, that's a different issue that we have in the church, right?

Is people aren't getting involved in others' lives enough to be able to notice it. And I told you before we went on air,

I had come to the church that I'm at right now when I had gotten there and I used to be, I used to be in the leadership there many, many years ago.

I got married in this church and I left and ended up pastoring at some other churches and now

I've come back and coming back to the church, I was there maybe two, three months, I believe, teaching in the

Wednesday night Bible study and there's a guy that was coming on a regular basis and hadn't seen him for a while and come to find out he had committed suicide.

And, you know, I remember when that happened. At first, I was like, why didn't I recognize the signs?

And I realized why. I didn't know him well enough. I had just started coming back to the church. I didn't know everybody well enough that was new, to me at least.

And, but there are, these things happen in church and I think there are signs that those of us who are close to others could, could, if they're paying attention, spot.

So, let's talk, what are some of the signs that you would notice if someone that is struggling, and I'm going to broaden it not just to depression, but you mentioned anxiety.

First, what are some signs of anxiety and then what are some signs that could be leading to depression that you've noticed?

Well, probably an important thing to say starting out is that even if you do everything right, it may not always be possible to correctly spot when someone is having depression or anxiety because people don't always, they can put on a very brave face and they're very desirous of not appearing to have any vulnerabilities.

So, because of that, they don't always give you a lot of opportunities to spot the signs.

But I do think that you've hit on something important and this would be the first recommendation

I would give that there has to be some kind of pre -existing relationship with people.

If you're expecting that people you just sort of say hi to in the hall once a week, that you're going to be able to spot when they're having a difficulty with this, probably not.

If you have, on the other hand, made the kinds of commitment that it takes to develop a real deep friendship with someone, not only will you be more aware of their behaviors and therefore be more aware if something seems off, but also they will feel much more comfortable opening up to you if they're going through a difficulty.

I also think it's important for churches to acknowledge suffering and there are different ways you can do that but we know there are some churches and various denominations maybe in particular, but it could pop up anywhere, where they sort of give this impression that if you are doing everything right then of course

God's going to bless you and of course good things are going to happen to you and if things are going wrong, it must be because you sinned, it must be because you don't have faith.

This kind of thinking can usually, if it's big and glaring and obvious, we notice it, but sometimes it can come in more subtle ways in the fact, like I said, that we don't usually have a lot of songs that we sing that acknowledge the broken state of our world.

If you look at the Psalms which is really the hymn book of the Bible, there are so many Psalms that are psalms of lament and that acknowledge the suffering that we have in this world.

I was going to say, you're clearly not a Presbyterian who reads out of the Psalter. Well, it's true that I do not go to a

Presbyterian or even a church that identifies as Reformed but I think whether, and I'm not looking to get in a debate over whether we do exclusive Psalms or not.

But you bring up the point that Psalms are very much unity. Yeah, and I think our hymns should at least reflect if you choose to use hymns or worship choruses they should be in line with the kind of emotional states we're seeing in the

Psalms where we have yes, we do have the joyous Psalms which are so important where we remember the blessings that the

Lord has given us. But also where we acknowledge the suffering. And sometimes if you go to a church where you never hear suffering not usually mentioned in sermons it's just constantly upbeat and there's no acknowledgement of the difficulties that godly people can face in their lives.

That's another thing that can make you hesitant to want to shatter the veneer that your church has put up.

But in terms of, I would say signs that someone might be experiencing a difficulty would be people who start disconnecting themselves from social activities that could be a sign of various problematic things but one of them could be depression or anxiety.

Sometimes people I've known who have been experiencing depression or anxiety, they may be at, you may be at a social function with them but they just seem to be a little bit disconnected.

Almost like they're not quite in a daze but just kind of checked out. And that can be because they're having a lot of internal turmoil.

But again, as I say it's, you know, you might not because we've seen all these cases of, you know, someone like well to pick an example,

Robin Williams who was, whatever you would see interviewed or talking to anyone they would always say, oh he was so happy and upbeat and then they find out he actually was very depressed underneath a lot of that.

So I really do think relationships and building close friendships and creating a situation in which people feel like they can be open about what they're going through is important.

To give another example, a couple years ago I had two good friends who both experienced miscarriages and this is the kind of event that often is a trigger for depression and to see the different ways that they reacted to that was very, it was very helpful for me to see that because one of them she wanted to go onto social media, tell everybody what she was experiencing, ask for their prayer and then go back even months or a year after the fact to come back and note that it was the anniversary of this terrible event that had happened.

The other friend said absolutely nothing at all. I only found out through the grapevine and I had to make a point a few months later of coming up to her and saying, are you doing okay?

It's been a few months now, how are you feeling? Because our tendency is if it's out of sight, it's out of mind and people go through something difficult like a job loss or a death in the family or a chronic illness and at first we're very responsive in praying for them and helping them and keeping them in our minds but as time goes by, we tend to forget about what they're suffering or to assume they must be over it and oftentimes that can be the danger zone when we're no longer being as proactive in praying for people or offering to help them or being intentional in speaking to them so I think we need to keep that in mind as well, not just assume it's been some time so they must be better because oftentimes depression can last for a very long time.

And this is one of the things whenever I'm having to help people through grief especially as you mentioned some of the things loss of a family member

I usually will mention it's really the 2 -3 month period afterwards that is the most crucial time and so it's helpful, you've given some things for us as church members, if we have other church members going through a job loss, going through a loss of a loved one, that's a big one, miscarriages loss of a child is huge regardless of the age

I've seen many parents who go into depressions because they lose a child even if the child's an adult because it's just like this mindset we have that we shouldn't outlive our children and so we end up seeing there's trigger things that we should look for, you brought up the thing one of the things

I notice if people stop coming to church we want to reach out to them not just because hey why are you not coming to church like it's about church but it's usually an indicator of something else or if they were always going to church functions and now they're not showing up to all of them and it's really important when going through if you're struggling with depression to make sure you go to those functions, make sure you go where people are because really

Amy you mentioned this earlier it's that community that's needed, a big part of it that helps us out of it if we're going to talk about it and most people don't want to because of either the stigmas because they think no one can help them and one of the things

I find about depression not just what I've gone through but people I've counseled depression is something that always seems to put you in a past event you're not living in the present you really aren't living for the future it's one of the first things

I was taught in counseling with depression is the very first thing that you have to do with someone is give them hope hope that there's going to be a future hope they're going to make it through this because so much of the depression is to want to be in the past to dwell on a past event

I notice that people who are struggling with it and folks are listening and they start noticing these things about themselves not only dwelling on a past event but the desire to be alone, the desire to be in darkness

I know people that will close their shades and just want to be in a dark house and just really cut themselves off from everybody and everything and that's, like you mentioned earlier that is probably the worst thing to do because it's cutting off the very thing the lifeline that we need which is the church for those of us that are

Christians we need to be doing the one another's

I'm doing a just this past week we did our daily podcast which is that two minute podcast we recently did one on just being spiritually depressed but this week we're dealing with why show up to church and one of the things

I'm dealing with this week is the fact that there's all these one another's sixty one another's in the epistles these are what the church does we love one another we bear one another's burdens we edify one another, we exhort one another we lift one another up all of these things but we can't do that if A.

we're not seeking those people who may be struggling and if we're struggling we're not seeking the people who need it to help us

I really think that if you look at James a lot of people have differing views on this but in James where he talks about if you're sick

I think the word actually should be weak if you're so weak there is a point where you can be so depressed you can't even pray and he says call the elders to pray for you there is a time where you need somebody else to come alongside us and lift us up in prayer but also in practical things like you're saying

Amy just being there would be one I find often for women who lose loved ones something like meals not just immediately after but months after because even something like cooking can be a difficult thing for someone who does the bulk of the cooking

I have found cases where people don't eat right now because they don't feel like cooking they don't want to do anything they want to curl up in a ball on their bed or on the couch do nothing or just sit and watch

TV so what are some other things that you see as I want to get into the issue of medical in a bit but other than the medical what are some things you see that are helpful to help others to come through this you talked about having friends in your past that helped you through your depression what are some other things that could help your friends help you yeah

I think yeah it's a good thing to consider because depression it's essentially as if someone was able to take all the joy and the hope and the meaning out of your body somehow if that was possible that's what it feels like when you're depressed it's sort of a condition not only being feeling despairing emotionally but also just feeling that there isn't a point and you can feel overwhelmed by the smallest task and I know many times when

I felt very depressed I sort of wake up in the morning and say okay why am I going to get out of bed today what's the point you can start to feel that way and sometimes making decisions or doing small things like cleaning the house or cooking a meal can start to feel overwhelming so I'm reminded of something

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book Life Together which was about Christian community and he talked about that sometimes the word of God is stronger when it comes from your fellow

Christian it's stronger in your fellow Christian than it is in yourself and he wasn't meaning that it's different coming from them but there are times when we're very low in spirit where it's hard for us to really for those spiritual truths to sink into us as we read them in scripture but sometimes if we have a brother or sister in Christ who comes up and just reminds us of the simple truth you know

God loves you and you know you're part of our congregation you're part of his body and we're praying for you and reminds you of your hope that you have in Christ sometimes to have someone who comes into your life and speaks that truth into you can be very powerful and it does become difficult because of course you don't want to just smother a person but sometimes you do have to be a little proactive in dealing with a person with depression because they're not necessarily going to take the initiative

I remember sometimes when I felt depressed I felt almost as if I were toxic to other people like if I spent time trying to engage in friendship with other people that maybe the depression

I was struggling with would start to affect them and drag them down so there are all kinds of reasons that a person would be hesitant to reach out to others and that's when you need to demonstrate to the person that you're willing to for that point in the relationship to be more the giver than the receiver usually we want our friendships to be kind of an ideal mix where we're both giving and receiving but sometimes when you have someone in a very dark time you have to be a giver to them, a net giver to them for a while and that can be overwhelming sometimes

I've had times in my life where someone is going through a struggle and I'm giving a lot to them emotionally and it becomes such a weight on me to be the person who's trying to kind of hold them up and that's when you say you need more than just one person and you need even if you're the one who's supporting someone else maybe you need someone to support you so there are lots of things to consider but I would say yes, definitely practical things, let them know if they haven't been coming to church, it could be for a totally benign reason that they haven't been coming, but just think of it as if you had a member of your family who all of a sudden started not coming to family events, you would probably call them and say, hey we noticed you weren't here, what's going on?

Is everything okay? And I think we should have that same frame of mind about our church family that sometimes it can become more difficult the bigger the church is you don't always notice when people are gone that's when you need to be intentional about developing community within the church having smaller groups of people who can be looking out for one another maybe you can have some of your deacons be assigned to a particular group of the congregation,

I've had that at some of the churches I've been to where they really try to focus on that group and build relationships with those people because the church is sort of too big for them to be at a really close level with everyone so there are different strategies you can consider but I definitely think offering practical help with yard work maybe if they're a parent, do you need me to help with bringing your kids to this or that activity so that you can have a chance to go speak with a pastor or a counselor or whatever the case may be and it will really depend on the person so you can ask the person what they need help with but understand you might have to ask a couple times before they really feel comfortable telling you because we all have this sense of pride that I don't want to ask someone to make a meal for me unless I think it's really a serious situation because otherwise

I feel bad that they're going out of their way for me so that's when you need to just make it very clear to this person

I'm serious when I said I was willing to help you, I wasn't just saying that as a social nicety

I really did mean that I'm ready to sacrifice my time, my energy, my resources on your behalf and I think once people start to understand that then they might be more willing to actually tell you what would be helpful but if they just get the feeling that you're just being polite that you're just being polite they might think well

I'm not going to ask you to do something big because and also sometimes people have this mentality where they really feel like they need to repay one for one everything that someone does for them and oh if you're going to come work on my yard and I'm not feeling physically fit to later work on your yard or do something else for you then

I better say no because I can't repay you and that's when we need to remind people that our service to one another is a gift and God has given us so many gifts that we can never repay and that should be the spirit that we have toward other

Christians as well. You know one of the groups that I find in the church who struggle not always with depression but they're like borderline a lot is single mothers and one of the things

I've done is I often will when I have single mothers I'm usually trying to do things especially if they have boys you know

I'm trying to be a male role model in their boys life and so I'll take them to ball games

I don't like ball games but I'm not a big baseball fan but I'll take their sons there or do something with them it gives them a break so many people don't understand what especially for the single mothers who are working one two maybe three jobs trying to raise the kids they want to be home with the kids the kids are

I mean there's so much frustration they can sometimes get into a depression even though they seem functional they're struggling and so that would be one group

I often will see so often so it's like you know just reaching out to them seeing how you could give them a break sometimes the thing that really helped me a lot was

I think it was R .C. Sproul who wrote I'm trying to remember he had a book on suffering talked about the vocation of suffering the fact that God actually brings suffering in some people's lives as a vocation that they in the way

God has designed them can bring God glory through their suffering which sounds so bizarre to us because we think no we should never suffer like because we believe the prosperity gospel that we hear right

I mean that's you kind of alluded to that earlier but because if we're suffering it must be our our lack of faith the reality is sometimes

God brings that suffering for his own glory just read through Job no one ever wants to really read it that but you think about Job suffered for God's glory so God would receive the glory and there are times when we're going to have that but there's also times in and you mentioned the physical

I'm going to want to come back in a second I want to talk about the physical aspects of depression and some things that can sometimes help that sometimes we're not so willing to to talk about in the church the good news is striving for eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks teaching them biblical hermeneutics that's right the art and science of interpreting scripture the bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

Jeremiah 29 11 should not be their life first to learn more go to strivingforeternity .org

to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area right so Amy is

Jeremiah 29 11 is that your life first just checking no it's not it's a very good first and very useful for us to study but it probably should be read in the context of the whole letter that was sent to the

Jews in exile but yeah yeah I find it amazing that people struggle over trying to figure out who that verse is for if they just read one verse before when it says those that were captive in in Babylon well to make a point though about that verse and it sort of connects with what you were saying just before the break so that verse is saying you know

I know the plans I have for you to give you a hope and a future and the idea people get from this is

God has a wonderful plan for your life and he's going to use you for great things I think that's actually true but people don't understand that that might include suffering you know that wonderful plan

God has for your life might be for you to go you know be a missionary in some backwater place where you'll be subject to diseases and all kinds of things and people are like well

I'd much rather serve God in my mega church here in suburban America you know so I do believe that God has great plans for people in his body but for instance do

I think that the struggles I've had with depression and anxiety are part of his plan

I have to conclude that they are because you know they've come into my life and they've although I've often felt rather faithless going through them

I think they've had the result of strengthening my faith and I can't imagine that I would have done some of the things

I've ended up doing if I hadn't had those things in my life so it's been woven into the tapestry if you will of my life and I think the end picture is going to be a really beautiful thing but sometimes certain moments when you're getting poked with the needle kind of hurt a little bit and we have to understand that you know when

God said to Israel in that chapter that he had plans for them his plan was for them not to immediately be relieved from their exile but to stay there for many years he said you know seek the good of the place you're living because you're going to be there a long time now he did say eventually

I'm going to bring you back but basically that letter was to let them know that partly they were going to be there for a long time well he said they're going to be there for 70 years and actually it's very interesting because just a few verses after that in verses 16 and 17

Jeremiah 29 16, 17, 18 you see he says I now have plans for you plans of famine and sword and pestilence the point you're making is valid those are also his plan but we just want the ones

I just want the good plans so let's talk about this the physical aspects of depression because you had alluded to this earlier but there is a

I think a spiritual side to depression there's an emotional side to depression there's also a physical side to it and I want to talk briefly about the issue because a lot of people this becomes a controversial issue right should we medicate should we use things use the technology that's now available for these mood altering drugs are they so here's the gamut right you have some people that say hey use it whenever whatever helps you know use everything you can to the other gamut where it's a sin to take any kind of drug or even herbal stuff like anything's a sin so there's a huge gamut and I always find that the truth is usually in the middle where we actually have to apply our thinking and our minds and reason together so let's talk about the physical aspects of depression talk about the medicines that are now available how could they help how could they also be a hurt or deterrent yes part of the problem we have with the discussion surrounding depression is that it is a more difficult condition to understand than some other conditions and it's not even the best scientists of the day don't completely understand it

I've said before the brain is the least understood organ in the body because it's by far the most complex and we still don't understand exactly how some of the things in the brain work and you know despite what

I've heard at different points where people say this is the one thing causing depression the best research

I can see nowadays is saying that it actually comes from a number of factors and usually it can be some things are physical there are environmental issues such as you know maybe like I said job loss grief over the death of a loved one things like that can create a situation where you're particularly vulnerable to depression

I think what you've mentioned about the difficulties you've had in pastoral ministry really points to the fact that there may be spiritual causes of depression now sometimes people bring that up simply to say that your depression is a result of your sin

I think certain sins could lead you into depression for sure but I also think

I'm really convinced that people who are in Christian ministry or prominent positions of leadership within the church are uniquely vulnerable to certain difficulties with depression because of the nature of what they're doing and we can see that even it's not just the nature of what they're doing

I think it's also the nature that there's this expectation they're supposed to be seeming like they don't struggle so they don't share their struggles that's one of the things that I ended up learning in ministry now

I surround myself with people that I can share my struggles with so that I haven't been as susceptible to it because there's people

I know I can call and say I'm struggling right now because we need people in our lives that we can bear one another's burdens with I think that's absolutely correct when you're the pastor or particularly if you're the senior pastor or the head of a church usually you seek the counsel of people who are higher up on the ladder or at the same level if you are the top person on the ladder you don't really have either of those presumably now depending on your denomination you may have someone who's above you that's not part of your congregation but often times in a situation of a more congregational form of church polity not only you are basically very isolated by the nature of your position and in addition to that the expectations that people have that you will be setting a more perfect and holy example and that you won't be having normal human problems we need to remember that pastors are people and I think that if you look at some of the letters of Paul you see that what he dealt with as far as he was so invested in the churches that he was involved with and he felt their pain so deeply he rejoiced so greatly when they were bearing spiritual fruit but then if anything was going wrong with the churches he talks about the daily stress he was under as a result of everything that he was trying to do for the

Lord and the nature of his ministry I also think that sometimes if we believe that we're struggling not just against flesh and blood but against his sort of demonic activity at times

I always want to be careful because when you start talking about that it makes me nervous but the thing

I think I can say with some confidence is to the extent that we have real evil in this world

I think that the more good you're doing and the more visible you are will probably make you only more likely to suffer some kind of difficulty attack of that nature if you think of the book of Job why did

Satan go after Job specifically because he was righteous and he was you know God was being glorified in his life and he wanted to get

Job to a point where he would curse God and where his testimony would fall apart and you know

I think sometimes you can get people that go the other way that say if anyone's ever criticizing them then obviously that's of Satan and I'm just completely righteous but I do think

I've seen many good people really their heart in the right place not perfect people but striving to do the right thing for the

Lord who come up against all sorts of opposition and difficult situations in churches where they just get absolutely burned out and it's such an unfortunate thing but I think that I love it when

I see churches that you know they'll give their pastors sabbaticals or they'll bring other people on staff to help with part of their duties they will do different things to allow them to spend more time with their family that's so critical because a lot of pastors end up giving everything in themselves to their church family and their own family suffers and their own family is going to be a balm for their soul but in times where they're struggling with things they probably feel much more open sharing that with their family than you know if I was a pastor

I wouldn't go up to just any congregant and start telling them all the problems in my life there are lots of reasons why you wouldn't necessarily do that so I would say if you are a pastor make sure that you're seeking out some good accountability relationships and maybe other pastors or someone who was a mentor to you as you were coming up in the ministry have or even some a lot of areas there's pastors who have pastors fellowships things like that so let's do you do you think there is a in your experience do you think there's a benefits that could come from medicine yes

I'm just realizing I never answered that part of your question I apologize I got so passionate about what

I was talking about so I mentioned that there are different kinds of factors that can lead to depression there is research that suggests that the neurotransmitters which are used by our brain to for various reasons and have a big impact on our mood and emotions that those could be some of the culprit behind people who are having serious depression and here

I want to differentiate between people who go through more of a temporary period of depression and people who are in a long term severe depression that is really making it difficult for them to do normal life activities that's usually how we define clinical depression it has to be severe it has to be long lasting it has to be interfering with normal life activities so when you're talking about that kind of clinical depression

I there is research that suggests that there is a you know this neurological component where if you think of things like serotonin or dopamine that either the levels might be lower than they should be or somehow not functioning the way they should be but this is where the research fails us a little bit because we haven't it's not perfectly understood how this works at this point so there are a number of medicines that have come out over the past you know maybe 20 -25 years that have aimed to promote a better balance of these neurotransmitters in people's brains and there obviously are a host of opinions about these medications and you know

I always take a bit of a cautious approach with them I don't think we should absolutely demonize them and say it's a sin to take them

I also don't think we should ever give people the impression that if they just take a pill they're going to feel better because that's all the research

I've seen also suggests that medication is only one part of a treatment plan and that good solid counseling and having a good support system around you can be just as effective in combating depression as medicine is but the one thing

I would say is this and you mentioned the people who demonize it the one thing I would say and I've seen this is pastors as well meaning as they may be who believe that using any kind of medicine is wrong and I shared with you before we went live about this is

I knew a pastor who counseled someone that had been taking mood altering drugs for over 30 years and just told them that's a sin and he had to stop it immediately or they were going to practice church discipline on them and so here you had a guy who is suddenly being told like this is a this is a sin and it was something where I had to intervene because this

I've seen this way too many times with people who as well meaning as they might want to be take people 20 30 40 years of taking these medicines the body is reacting to that adjusting to that you cannot just stop that even if you want if you're on those type of medications maybe you're on those medications for many years now you have the support structure you have the church you want to get off those you do that with your medical doctor and you have to get off those in a scheduled way these are not the sort of drugs you can just stop taking it's not like an aspirin or something like that this does affect much of the body in a way that's different than some other medicines you can't just stop it and the one danger

I see is when people just say you got to stop immediately that could be very dangerous even if someone feels they want to stop it they want to get off the medicine and if the pastors are saying they should it has to be gradual there has to be a plan because when the body gets used to these medicines and suddenly it's removed immediately there's a reaction that many pastors are not ready to handle with folks and I've had to do a lot of counseling visitations in you know mental institutions and mental wards in the hospitals dealing with ramifications of people who tried stopping these medications cold turkey and I definitely would strongly even if someone is against them

I think they could have their place as long as they're not overused but the medicines are something that have to be dealt with with medical physicians, medical doctors not just a pastor who doesn't have the medical background that's one thing as a caution yes

I definitely agree with you on that I think that we need to be very careful before we start giving people medical opinions when we have a hand medical training

I do understand why some people feel a bit skeptical over the medical community or the community of psychologists or pharmaceuticals people are nervous about that kind of stuff for a lot of reasons some of them having nothing to do with religion

I am not necessarily prepared to address all of those reasons because sometimes people just don't trust big pharmaceuticals different things like that as far as the religious situation in the church

I think we need to be careful before we tell people that something is a sin unless we have a clear biblical warrant for that because if someone is already struggling with depression and then you come up they are already feeling very guilty and struggling with shame because of the condition they are going through and you come up and approach them as you would someone who was abusing some kind of illegal drug as opposed to someone who is trying to take something under the consultation of the oversight of medical community you just can't treat those two people the same way because it is two different heart situations that are going on and I think you are absolutely right that many psychiatric type medications are meant to build up slowly in your body so you need to start them slowly and come off them slowly if you try to come off them immediately your brain has become accustomed to having that chemical affecting it so for instance it has become accustomed to taking a drug that maybe will produce or encourage better functioning serotonin if you then immediately stop taking the drug you are going to have not enough serotonin and it is going to have a big problem and I do think that is also something to consider before you start taking a drug that they can have some side effects and some of them definitely have withdrawal effects so I always encourage people do your research, ask your doctor what potential side effects are there if I were to stop taking this drug would

I potentially have withdrawal effects what are the pros and cons of this medicine, what has been the experience of other people who have taken this medicine if you feel like your doctor, sometimes people are feeling like there are certain doctors that will just give out pills for anything,

I can tell you my father is a physician and he definitely is not like that at all but you know it is a community like any other you have some people who are better and some who are worse and there are some doctors who we have certainly seen over prescription of antibiotics over the years for example so I think particularly when some of these drugs like maybe

Prozac first came out it was considered to be a kind of miracle drug and so they would prescribe it to people all the time and I think the long term research we have right now is helping doctors to be more mindful in how they prescribe things correctly but I do understand the hesitancy people have towards drugs and I usually recommend to people that they don't immediately go to taking a prescription medication because there are some other things that can be helpful for a person to try first for instance if you're depressed there's research that suggests that taking up not necessarily a strenuous exercise regimen but some kind of exercise regimen even if it's just going for a walk can be very helpful sometimes where I grew up we would have very long and dark winters and people tend to get seasonal affective disorder there which makes them depressed so there are special lights you can buy that you use and it helps to duplicate the affect of the sun

Did you grow up in Alaska? Michigan We would have in January you pretty much would hardly see the sun all

January, it was just clouds but so there are and you can go to all kinds of websites online, sometimes people try reducing the amount of caffeine or alcohol they're intaking, eating less sugar and salt and processed foods, sometimes people find that that helps their mood so there are all kinds of things you can try before going the route of medicine but I have had maybe a friend who has suffered for a long time and they've tried many of these other things and they've gone to Christian counseling and they've done the whole gamut of different things that could help with depression at that point

I say maybe you should talk to your doctor about the possibility of trying a medication and you always want to be very wise about it and do it under the supervision of a doctor and never just change your dosage or stop taking it without asking your doctor but because also some of these medications can have interactions with other medications that you might not be aware of but your doctor might be so you always need to do your research and be very careful because you're right it's not just like taking aspirin.

Aspirin is meant to work very fast and it goes in and out of your system very quickly these medications usually stick around in your system for a long time so because of that you need to be aware that it's a little different than other medications

Alright so I think you and I should play a game and I didn't warn you about this

It's time now to start the spiritual transition game and that too is

John's voice and so now we get to see how much you've been listening to the rap report whether you know what's coming or not so this is a game that we're going to play where you're going to give me something where I have to transition to the gospel so it could be anything you want and the reason we play this game is most people find it easier to share the gospel once the conversation is spiritual how do they get there and they always figure they gotta wait for God to do some miraculous thing in a conversation to make it an easy conversation to get to the gospel and I take the position no you can take every conversation if you so want to by practicing you can transition any conversation to the gospel and so we put that on display and I'm going to take whatever we have not practiced or prepared for this and I see you looking around like what am

I going to give him but you give me an object or a thought or you know anything you want and I have to transition live to the gospel so I can throw any kind of thought at you okay well

I'll just go with some things that I've become aware of recently I think okay and I'm starting now so I think the sex scandal in the

Catholic Church is horrible and the Pope should resign well I'm probably going to agree which is kind of interesting because a

Pope can't resign but one just did right I mean they're supposed to be for life which is kind of interesting because one resigned and possibly even resigned over this issue that he realized he couldn't expose it.

There have been enough Popes at this point that every eventuality has presented itself so there's always a precedent there's even been times where there's been three

Popes at once all excommunicating each other but you know isn't that so interesting that we look at a man and we expect that they've spent years in a religious system so much that we expect them to almost be as if they're now perfect as if they could somehow leave being a human being and become something other than a human and as much as they try and I think the more that they attempt to put on the facade it's kind of like we were talking with depression the more a pastor puts on a facade that everything's happy the more they end up struggling the more that you put on a facade that you're this perfect Pope and you do nothing wrong the more you end up seeing a struggle if you look at the previous two

Popes ago I guess John Paul II you see that he actually a lot of people don't know this about him he would actually sleep on the floor because he was trying to earn merits to gain his salvation he would do things to punish himself he'd whip himself to try to earn his salvation to make up because he knew that even if he couldn't show it to the world he knew he was not living a righteous life if we're going to be honest with ourselves we're all that way we're all going to have to admit that we really don't live in our own minds perfect and righteous as we try to put on for others but you know there was someone who actually did live a perfectly righteous life and I'm going to tell you something about this guy not only did he live a perfectly righteous life as a human being but he suffered a death that he was not guilty of he was innocent but he suffered it for someone else in fact he suffered it for more than one person and he suffered that death and took the full consequence of that he actually did that for me he suffered the death that I should have suffered because of the things

I've done wrong he suffered it that I could be set free you probably know of this individual he's one of the names that's used as more foul language than any other his name is

Jesus Christ and he came to earth God Almighty died on a cross that we could be forgiven of sin because you and I just like the

Pope are not innocent and we're not guilt free but we struggle with the guilt he came to release us from that guilt but what we have to do is stop trusting ourself as a good person or trust our good works and trust what

Jesus Christ did on that cross 2000 years ago as our only payment of sin so that's how

I would do that on short notice do you want another one?

oh a twofer okay and now she's like okay now I thought of something harder well no

I didn't know if I was supposed to be coming up with multiple examples so my next example would be

I just think that it is silly that Nike is putting

Colin Kaepernick in its ads because you know he wasn't even that great of a quarterback and he's just famous for doing something disrespectful and here

I was about to say and we finally have someone that won't give me a sports transition and there you go yeah and I actually only know about this because I saw it recently that there was this big thing because they were paying him

I guess all along and stuff and building up this whole thing I haven't followed this at all folks who are regulars should know that I am for the most part sports illiterate at least on team sports but I guess where people are calling him out is

I'm being a hypocrite because he's saying he's standing for something but he's actually been getting paid for it and now he's benefiting from that and we look at that and we say that that's wrong it's amazing how we always notice hypocrisy in other people when others do wrong and yet we don't notice it when we do wrong it's a thing we find with human beings we can judge others much easier than we can judge ourselves and I find it interesting that if I was to ask you if you ever told a lie you might admit to telling a lie but most people if I ask what would that make you they don't want to say a liar they want to say human or a sinner or like everybody else and then when

I say if I lied what would you call me and they're very quick to say a liar because we're really good at identifying things people do wrong when it's others and we don't want to admit it to ourselves and that's part of the problem that actually keeps us in a state where we think we're a good person when we're not and because of that pride it actually is something that we get judged by we're going to be judged on a day of judgment when all of us are going to face

God and he is going to judge us not based on how good we are he's going to judge us based on the works we do he's actually going to condemn us because those works don't compare to the work he did when he came to earth and died on a cross and he paid the fine that you and I owe we have to stop trusting ourselves stop trusting our good works our genealogy that we're raised a certain religion that we have to stop trusting ourselves as a good person turn and trust what

Jesus did on the cross so that's how I do it and notice I didn't even mention anything of him who

I don't know much about well you didn't get into politics and that was a very good decision yeah and see you could avoid all that and that's the thing you know

I think you can you anybody with practice can get into sharing the gospel so so with that Amy before we wrap up anything you want to share with folks anything you're working on I know you're working on your new book but any other things you're working on or anything you want to share with folks

I don't know if there's anything I need to mention as far as I'm working on I'm really excited because I'm about to go to California to go to particular con which is a small conference for a particular

Baptist at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in La Mirada California so I'm very excited to go out there and fellowship with some

Reformed Baptist friends and also I'm going to see hopefully a few Presbyterian friends while I'm out there so I just love the unity we can have in Christ even despite our denominational differences and one thing

I do like to mention for those who are looking for good resources regarding depression there are a lot out there but the one

I've taken to mentioning is one that's been helpful to me this past year which are some of the literature put out by the

Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation that's CCEF and they have a number of people who work for them they actually train people in Biblical Counseling Ed Welch is one person who's written a few several books for them and also

I think David Powlison and they have various people there but so far the resources

I'm familiar with I found to be very helpful they strike a good balance between the physical, the spiritual emotional and I think they bring a lot of hope to people without demonizing them or their conditions so that's something

I'd recommend for anyone who's looking for some good resources okay well if you have some specific ones

I'll get those from you and put those in the show notes if not we'll put the link to CCEF CCEF yeah

I knew that didn't sound right it's okay I appreciate having you on and maybe one day you and I will get back into a council meeting maybe they'll invite us and let us back in so we can disrupt their meetings and have fun we'll have to bust our way in I think lightsabers blazing okay so folks you're going to California Amy this week well

I go the following week but we go to different parts of California yes that is correct I'll be in San Francisco Redwood City specifically and if you get our newsletters we've put those dates out but I'll be up in Redwood City Grace Baptist with Pastor Steve Converse we'll be speaking out there then we'll be in Coronation Washington have a trip planned to Idaho and there is a plan

Justin Peters and I have confirmed that next year we are going to the

Philippines to be doing some discernment conferences at a couple different of the islands out there so we'll probably be out there about a week and a half it's looking like so be praying for us and I will say that this is something that we do we rely on our donors to help for that so if you care to help if folks are not familiar in the

Philippines unfortunately you know bad theology is raining they're having a big problem with the

Catholic Church making inroads into the Evangelical Church there's a lot of problems with the prosperity gospel out there new apostolic reformation is big out there we're going out there to try to help folks to teach them how to identify some of these false doctrines what to do about it give them good solid teaching so if you want to help support

Justin and I to get out to the Philippines to be able to help these churches you can support us at the website strivingforeturning .org

just go to the donate tab and donate there you can put in the comments it's for the Philippines that will get directed toward that trip because we're going to need your help to be able to get out there there's actually a couple different islands we're looking to go to so if you could help us that would be a big help and if you choose to donate at justinpeters .org

you could do that just make sure he'll understand this in the comments section put hashtag

Justin I win he'll know that that means he lost to me again that we've been having this ongoing battle who can out give each other

I need your help in out giving so everyone go there donate to Justin put hashtag

Justin I win and he'll know even though he won he lost so do that I get myself in such trouble so folks if there's anything else we got a bunch of new things going on I should mention

I should have mentioned this much earlier September 27th we will finally be announcing this for folks who used to like Matt Slick and I getting together doing our apologetics live well that's actually what it's now called apologetics live with Matt Slick and Andrew Rappaport it will start on Thursday nights it'll be on Thursday nights from now on Thursdays at 8 o 'clock eastern time it'll be two hours long you can come up and you could challenge well challenge

Matt ask me the softball questions but you can we're going to do the same format we used to do where Matt's going to do debates or I'll do some debates but it's mostly going to be

Matt doing a lot of debates a lot of being challenged then we're going to talk about apologetic issues maybe we'll have

Matt debating someone for a while and then explain why he asks the questions he asks to help train new apologists so we will have a website for this apologeticslive .com

there's where we're going to put the links on how to join the links on how to watch and also we're going to have hopefully a chat in there but we'll see so we're still working some of those things out but look for that September 27th that'll start so until then remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God this podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministry for more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church go to strivingforeternity .org