You are a threat.

“Oh, you just need to choose to be happy, and it will all get better!”

Thanks. I’ll just happy myself up some brain chemicals that will enable me to not feel like junk. I’ll get right on that.

Why do people do that? Why do so many well-meaning people just sweep depression away as if it’s not that big a deal, or if it is, it’s just because you’re not trying hard enough?

Your depression is a threat to their worldview.

Think about our prevailing culture. It revels in many lies, but I want to focus on two that you, by your existence, by the simple fact you have depression, are a threat to:

“People can conquer anything if they just set their minds to it.”

We like thinking we can do anything if we just apply some effort. Walk through any self-help section of any bookstore and you’ll find you can accomplish anything! And it’s true that God has given us humans many talents and abilities. I’m grateful for these gifts!

But the problem is we can’t do anything. I can’t fly by flapping my arms, no matter how hard I flap. I’m not going to be outrunning a car (unless the car is in pretty bad condition), no matter how hard I push myself. And I can’t be good enough to get God’s approval.

In fact, the Bible does not paint a very flattering picture of our abilities: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12).

When you have depression that you need help to deal with, there’s cognitive dissonance. They assume that you can conquer your depression if you just try hard. But… you can’t. That must mean one of two things: Either they’re wrong, or you’re just not trying hard enough.

In general, if a person has to choose between “I am wrong” or “You are wrong,” which do you think the average person is going to choose?

And that’s why people with depression so often get told they just need to cheer up and try harder. Because the alternative is that, just maybe, we can’t do anything we set our minds to.

Maybe we need someone to save us.

“Anything “negative” is bad.”

Often enough when I serve as a chaplain at a local hospital, I’ll enter the room of a patient I don’t know. That patient doesn’t want to talk to me, though. “I’m just thinking positive, and I’ll get out soon!” That seems to be the basic attitude of many people I encounter: As long as I stay positive, everything will turn out all right. They don’t want to talk about their struggles. They don’t want to even think about whatever the reason is for them being in the hospital.

Our culture doesn’t like dealing with negative things. The problem, of course, is that God’s definition of “negative” and mine can be very different.

I would say that dying on a cross would probably be a negative thing. And yet, Jesus’s death on the cross is the most beautiful, the most positive thing that ever happened to any of us. In that event we see God dealing with our sin, loving us enough to take the full weight of our deserved guilt, and declaring, “It is finished!”

Your existence as someone with depression challenges the view that says anything negative is bad. If anything “negative” is bad… well, you have depression. According to this worldview, you deal with that negativity by pretending it doesn’t exist.

Have you ever tried ignoring your depression? It can work… for a little bit.

And then everything falls apart.

And then… if everything “negative” is bad, and you have depression and can’t escape it, that must mean you are bad.

But wait! Didn’t I quote a Bible verse earlier that said that there is no one who does good?

I did. But… “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)! You are not what you were.

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You have depression. You are not depression. Jesus has you.

But if you try to live in reality, if you are public with the fact you have depression, you are offensive to those who say that anything negative is bad.

The threat you pose is good.

But here’s the amazing thing: You are a threat to the way they think. But by being a threat, you have an opportunity to point to Jesus.

“No, I can’t do anything I set my mind to. I need a Savior to rescue me. That Savior is Jesus. He was perfect. He did everything I don’t. He forgives me.”

“No, evil and darkness are real in this world. I won’t pretend otherwise. But I have a Savior who faced that evil for me, gave himself over to judgment in my place, and conquered sin, Satan, and death itself in my place.”

And that means you can be a threat in a God-pleasing way: A threat to old ways of thinking that are lies.

Yes, your depression can actually help. But be aware: If you decide to be transparent with your depression, if you let other people know about your struggle, you are a threat.

And that kind of threat can be a good thing.