Simon Wiesenthal (1908-2005) was an Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer and a Holocaust survivor. He became famous after WW II for his work to hunt down Nazi war criminals. In his book, The Sunflower, Wiesenthal describes an episode of his life toward the conclusion of WW II. It is 1943 and Wiesenthal is in Austria assigned to a work detail at the local military hospital, the same building that used to be his technical high school. While at the hospital a nurse takes him aside and asks him to follow her. She leads him to the room of a dying SS officer named Karl. The SS officer requested that a Jew be brought to him on his deathbed. Wiesenthal obviously did not know what to expect. What followed was a detailed, gruesome account of the officer’s crimes against some Jewish civilians and his unending remorse after the fact. The Nazi officer was responsible for the destruction of a house where approximately 150 Jews had sought refuge. The SS officer confessed to destroying the 150 Jews inside the home by fire. Wiesenthal was prepared to jump up and leave at any moment. Yet, something keeps him at the dying man’s bedside. He shoos a fly away from the SS officer’s bandaged wound and holds his hand. At the end of the officer’s confession, the Nazi officer asks for forgiveness. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal says nothing and simply walks away. What would you have done? That’s the question Wiesenthal asks after he wrestled with his decision. He wondered, “Did I do the right thing?” In an attempt to find an answer to his question, he asks more than fifty prominent theologians, political leaders psychiatrists, human right activists, and Holocaust survivors of Bosnia and Cambodia. Yet, more than twenty-five of the world’s leading opinion makers could not say whether Wiesenthal did the right thing. Approximately half of those who were asked for their opinion simply leave Wiesenthal in his foreboding thoughts and questions on forgiveness.
Is there such a thing as healing from the fallout of the world’s tragedies? Can we locate healing from depression as if we are searching for our lost car keys? Today, we tackle the subject of depression in Psalms. We do this for the second time in this series. This maybe surprising for many of you. It maybe a surprise to note that the Scriptures, especially Psalms, frequently deals with depression. It seems to be a common affliction for God’s people right from the beginning.
“O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!?2 For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me. 3 There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.?4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. 5 My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness,?6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.?7 For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.?8 I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. 9 O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.?10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.?11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off. 12 Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long. 13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth.?14 I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes. 15 But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.?16 For I said, “Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!” 17 For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.?18 I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.?19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.?20 Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good. 21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!?O my God, be not far from me!?22 Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!” (Psalm 38:1-22)
We are in a eight week study of the Psalms, entitled God Talk: Conversations through the Psalms. The Psalms are a collection of poetry and praise, where we see both God speaking to His people as well as a window into an ancient world. This window into the faith of Jews before the time of Christ gives us a glimpse of the prayer and the praises of this ancient people. With more than 150 chapters of poetry and praise to God, this book will transform your prayer life. This book is to be sung and cherished. Our pictures throughout the Psalms are not cold, abstract studies found in the pages of psychology textbooks. Instead, they are truth revealed through the emotions, desires, and sufferings of the people of God. We see that they talk to themselves… they bare their souls… and they are honest with themselves and consequently, they are honest with us.
The words of Psalm 38 have hands and feet. They climb all over you. They work their way into your heart and conscience, and will not be dislodged. In a word, David wrestled with a prominent emotion condition, his depression and his need for healing. David demonstrates a wisdom and resilience in his deepest times of need. David models for us resiliency and toughness as he traverses mental anguish and depression.
David Brainerd was a young missionary to the Indians of New Jersey in the 1700’s. Throughout the generations of his family, they have suffered prevalence toward depression. In 1865, a descendant living nearly 100 years after David, spoke of his family: “In the whole Brainerd family for two hundred years there has been a tendency to morbid depression…” Brainerd had other reason for depression beside his genetics. His father was austere. Both of his parents died when David was young. One of his brothers, Nathan, died at 32. Another brother, Israel, died at 23. A sister, Jerusha, died at 34. In his own words: “… from my youth [I was] inclined … to melancholy…” Brainerd suffered from the blackest of dejections. Yet, he could say after his conversion to Christ that God’s love would catch him as if from underneath his times of sorrow. Brainerd writes that after his “born again” experience, there was a marked difference in his emotions. Though he still suffered from depression, his emotional pain was not as deep. And his resilience was stronger because these difficult periods of his life.
Let’s watch and see how David finds healing…
1. Lord, You Hurt Me
“O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath!?2 For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me” (Psalm 38:1-2). If you were to look at David at this moment, the first thing you might notice is his physical illness. From verse seven we note that David’s back hurts. His wounds in verse five even have a smell to them… A stench that others would find offensive. And from verse three that everything in his body hurts.
Some of you may have heard something about those who suffer with a complex and painful condition called Fibromyalgia. In order to describe such pain, a man wrote a letter of a description of his man.
“Living with chronic pain is like being in a room where a radio is playing at too high a volume, and it can't be turned down or off. It can very distracting and prevent me from focusing on conversations or tasks. I can look fine, even when pain has me close to tears. Because my symptoms aren’t (usually) visible, I’m nervous about what others believe about my health. When you say, “But you look fine to me,” I wonder if that means you don't believe I don’t feel fine. Chronic pain is variable. I can’t predict how I am going to feel when I wake up — I can’t even be sure from minute to minute. As you can imagine, this is one of the most frustrating aspects of chronic pain.”
Disability-related depression is common, and I proactively manage it. Sometimes it feels as if my life was hit by a tornado when I wasn’t looking. Sometimes I feel grief and sadness for what I can no longer do. Sometimes I forget how strong I am and how much I still have to offer you, my family, friends, and the world.
In contrast to chronic pain that visits many of us, David’s pain is his own doing. He confesses his sin to God. David’s pain is dwarfed by his sin… for David is sure that his sin has found him out. Despondency is not a common word today. Yet, it capture exactly David’s feelings in Psalm 38. And it captures many of our feelings as well. It is not depression per se, because this word connotes a clinical definition in our day. Yet, David’s outlook is gloomy. As with David’s condition, you cannot separate the physical from the spiritual. His tiredness and illness cannot be isolated from the physical only. Instead, they are at once physical, emotional, and spiritual.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon experienced a depression that he didn’t know the cause. He spoke of being able to weep like a child at any moment yet, he didn’t know why he was crying. On another occasion, he spoke of the “iron bolt” that fastened the door of hope and held his spirit in a “gloomy prison.” While he wasn’t sure how he got there, he knew that he needed a “heavenly hand to push it back.”
David does something in the first few verses of Psalm 38 that so many of us find difficult to do. Frank Warren has created a place where people from all over the world can confess their sin anonymously. They do by simply sending him postcards. As of 2005, he had received more than 2,000 postcards of socially and politically incorrect ideas that people desire to express but had no place else to turn. One postcard states “I don’t care about recycling (but I pretend I do).” Another states: “His temper is so scary that I’ve lost all my options.” Still another said “I miss feeling close to God.” People feel guilty in our culture and yet they do not understand their guilt. During the middle part of 1990’s people were asked what they most felt guilty about: Nothing in particular: 34%; Spending too much money: 15%; Taking poor care of their health: 12%; Not spending time with friends and family: 12%. None of the top four response had anything to do with God.
David is experiencing such a state of emotional stress. He is overwhelmed with guilt… and feelings of abandonment. He is lonely and terribly sick. And he is sure that he is responsible for his despondency. He knows he has offended God. Not all despondency is because of our own individual sin. Yet, some of our emotional and mental pain is caused by what we do.
David doesn’t mention his specific sin in this psalm. David turns to God for mercy but he is afraid of God’s anger. David mentions God’s ferocious anger three times in first three verses. He is afraid that God is attacking him. That God’s “arrows” in verse two are piercing him. He speaks of God’s hand coming down upon him in the second part of verse two as if God’s hand was an army laying siege against His enemies. In none of this does David think that he does not deserve what has come on him. He is not faulting God. He knows he deserves God’s anger. Still, he is asking for God’s mercy. It is always right to ask for mercy. We cannot demand it. We have no claim for it. Yet, God is a merciful God and no one who has cried to God for mercy has come away empty-handed.
“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love” (Micah 7:18).
“For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
What Do I Do if I Don’t Know why I Suffer? What If I Am not Sure If My Pain Is Caused by Something I’ve Done?
Certainly, we don’t need to be morbid in digging up past failures. Only so we can exaggerate our confessions. If God is using sickness to bring us back to Him, He’ll make it clear to us.
Three Questions to Ask Yourself:
1. Have I Sinned? Is the Pain I am experiencing now a way for God to get me back on track?
2. Is God Using this Pain to Develop a More Christ-like Character in Me?
3. Is God Using My Suffering as a Stage where His Name can be Made Famous?
This is the hardest of God’s purposes. A great example of this kind of suffering is Job.
2. Lord, You Know Me
As Christ followers, we believe that God knows and sees everything. Children lined up in the cafeteria of a religious school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The teacher made a note: “Take only one, God is watching.” At the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A boy wrote a note: “Take all you want, God is watching the apples.” We live in a day where everything we do, whether good or bad, can be know and videoed for the entire world to see. In a world where so many of us carrying cell phones with camera and even small video camera, our behavior is recorded more so than ever. David, long before camera and video camera, know his every thought is know by God: “O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you” (Psalm 38:9). Despite his sickness, David continues to pray. He continues to cry out to God. Nowhere in Psalm 38 does David find a cure for his sickness. Surely, there is no quick and simple cure. At the end of Psalm 38, all David is left with is a hope of a cure and not a cure itself. Nevertheless, something profound happens for David. Despite his sin and his feeling of alienation from God, David knows God hears him.
Later in Psalm 138, the Bible expresses God’s knowledge of all things this way: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!?2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.?3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.?4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.?5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.?6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 138:1-6).
David expresses more precisely what he says in Psalm 38:9: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).
When a person is hurting physically and mentally, God becomes increasingly distant. God’s anger and wrath are more evident than His love. God appears to have forsaken you. Yet, God has not forsaken you. He never departs from His children. God is aware of what is happening all the time. He does not turn a “blind eye” toward you.
3. Lord, You Hear Me
When we are in pain – emotional pain and physical pain – we need to know God hears. David knows what you should know: Salvation is only from God. Finding real enduring help from humanity is vain (Psalm 60:11).
“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation” (Psalm 146:3). Instead our salvation is from God: “But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer” (Psalm 38:15). And one more: “Do not forsake me, O Lord!?O my God, be not far from me!?22 Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation” (Psalm 38:21-22)!
Jesus experienced abandonment:
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:36-39).
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46)?
Isaiah prophesized about Jesus Christ more than 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench…” (Matthew 12:20).
