Spiritual Depression – Washington Presbyterian Church

All Creation Waits

The seasons of the year have a story to tell us if we will just listen. What does winter teach us about waiting and hope?

When we live in Advent darkness we live with the tang of our salted tears in our mouth, but we live knowing that a day is coming when he will do precisely what we long for. Except, more fully and more wonderfully than we had hoped. The world will be fixed. Our tears will be shed for the last time. Our own hearts will be sifted and refined to rip from them hell’s root, and sin will be banished to the outer darkness.

How to Get Through a Spiritual Slump

If your mood feels as gray as the skies, Glenna Marshall wants to help you get through your spiritual slump.

We have seasons like this as Christians. You’ve been there, I’m sure. You probably don’t even know why or how you got there. Things were going fine until one day you noticed you didn’t feel the same fervor for the Lord that you usually do. Perhaps your heart feels cold. Or dry. Dull. Apathetic. Or as my friend, Dora, calls it—flat. Spiritual dry spells can hit us when we least expect, and they can last longer than we thought possible. Maybe you’re doing all the “right” things: reading your Bible, trying to pray, going to church as usual. Yet, you feel far from the Lord. Your heart just won’t engage. What do we do with these spiritual slumps that flatten out our affection for the Lord? Can any good come from them?

How to Keep Praying

Here’s a helpful look at some of Jesus’s teaching in the sermon on the mount that will help us to pray.

And one of the best ways we can remember is by listening to what Jesus himself says about prayer. So much of our Lord’s teaching on prayer is designed to help us “always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). In the Gospels, Jesus comes to pray-ers like us — discouraged, distracted, willing in spirit but weak in flesh — and he gives us a heart to pray. Of the many reminders we could mention, consider four representative lessons.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Don’t Just ‘Share’ the Gospel

The language we most often use regarding evangelism is “sharing the gospel.” Elliot Clark looks at the New Testament to see if that matches the way those authors wrote about evangelism. (Spoiler: it doesn’t.)

Our English word for evangelism derives from the Greek word euangelizo. It means, most basically, to announce good news. As Don Carson has helpfully demonstrated elsewhere, euangelizo involves heraldic proclamation. It assumes the authoritative declaration of the gospel. In other words, evangelism is an act whereby one cuts straight. You can’t hem and haw and do evangelism. After inviting a friend to church, you don’t get to check the box for doing evangelism. Being faithfully present in your neighborhood doesn’t equal biblical evangelism. Polite spiritual conversations at work or around the dinner table also don’t mean you’ve evangelized anyone. You must announce good news.

What I Pack In My Spiritual First Aid Kit

Much like a first aid kit for medical emergencies, Tim Challies suggests that we have supplies in mind when spiritual emergencies arise. What should we do when we find it impossible to open the Bible or to incline our hearts in prayer? Challies’s suggestions won’t be a good fit for everyone, but I suspect everyone will find something helpful here.

Then, of course, there is the inestimable value of a godly spouse and good friend to whom I can appeal in difficult times with a simple, “Please tell me something that’s true” or “Please pray for me.” In difficult times, I sometimes have to rely on the faith of others, to siphon from them confidence, joy, or hope.

Heresy Often Begins with Boredom

Sometimes heresy begins when people try to resolve a tension the Bible maintains. Other times, writes Brett McCracken, heresy begins because Christians are bored with the Bible, the church, Christians, obedience, or tradition. I appreciate that McCracken ends this article with a suggestion to fight this sort of boredom with wonder.

Ultimately when we become bored with things that should actually inspire in us awe and gratitude, the problem is pride. We think our spiritual path is ours to chart. We think when it comes to knowing God and living rightly, “I got this.” But just as pride came before the fall in Eden, so too does this sort of spiritual pride precede our veering away from orthodoxy.