Soul Reset by Junius Dotson
Week #2: When Depression Hits
Speaker: Rev. Joe Hansen
Hello, everyone who’s watching, from everywhere you’re watching. We are so glad you are on the Vine today. I’m grateful to be the guest preacher for week #2 in the Soul Reset series. We’re considering the book by the same name by Junius Dotson, and HE continued, in chapter 2, to recount his own experience with depression as he helps us all to de-stigmatize the topic of mental health.
We CAN talk with each other about our mental health. There’s no need to feel any sense of shame, or that we are a weak person, or that we have failed in our faith. We don’t have to act like we’ve got it all together when we know that we don’t. And perhaps most importantly, we don’t need to face our troubles alone.
We are here to bear one another’s burdens, and we can trust that there are individuals and groups who are “safe people”, and that our churches can be “safe places” for us to be open and vulnerable. Maybe you’re listening to me today and thinking, “I won’t ever do that. I won’t let my guard down like that. I won’t ever reveal that kind of struggle to another, or to others. I just can’t.
But PLEASE hear me. You can. We are not alone. We’ve been given the gift of one another. And the everlasting arms of God are there for us to lean on, to fall into. Of course, I can’t hear you saying “Amen,” but I imagine most of you are agreeing in your spirit if not with your mouth; “yes, Joe, that’s right. We are never alone.” But you COULD also be thinking, “but why do I feel so alone?” And if you feel THAT way, you are not alone!
Psalm 42 is the heart-cry of one who does not FEEL the presence of God, one who feels very much alone in their struggle. The Psalm begins with a parched prayer:
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
The Psalmist asks that question because the Psalmist doesn’t know where God is, how to meet with God, how to find God. But there IS a God. The Psalmist, and most scholars agree it was David, starts with this reality. There IS a God.
Well, this is a sermon for Christian worship. But I’ll acknowledge, of course, that not everyone believes in any sort of deity. French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, Blaise Pascal, famously said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”
This idea of a "God-shaped hole" is a metaphor for our yearning and spiritual quest, often described as a bottomless abyss that people try to fill with anything they can find, but only God can truly fill it.
Unfortunately, when dealing with depression, those who don’t believe in God and a lot of us who do, try to fill that vacuum – and this is a strange paradox - - we fill the vacuum with emptiness. We choose isolation. The things we used to enjoy don’t give us pleasure, so we don’t do them. We lack energy, sometimes feeling like we’re stuck in the mud. We feel an overwhelming sense of failure, or that we have been a disappointment. And sometimes we even despair of our life.
David is in a dark season of depression.
3 My tears have been my food day and night, - many of us can relate to that.
And the feeling of “alone-ness” regarding the presence of God is made worse by detractors and those who ridicule him.
3 My tears have been my food day and night,while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
“Where are you, God? My parched spirit thirsts for you. I need you, and I can’t find you, and on top of that, I’m mocked because I believe in you.” But then, he has a thought; within the nightmare of his depression, he has a recollection:
4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul:how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One[d]with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
I have memories like that, too. As someone, who, like Junius Dotson, has been diagnosed with clinical depression – in my case ‘major depressive disorder,” and “treatment-resistant depression,” I have memories, too, that remind me of beautiful and wonderful encounters I have had “among the festive throng”! Joy and praise and the presence of God.
Thursday evening at Dale Hollow Lake, 1978
I wasn’t raised in the UMC
UMC kids from my high school invited me to youth group and talked about having a relationship with God, with Jesus
I went with them on a houseboat trip the summer between my senior year of high school and my first year of college
I experienced God’s presence there; I gave my heart to Jesus that night, and it was almost like I could see into his eyes, reach out and touch him. His Spirit was there. God was with me.
Like David, and Junius Dotson, and all of you … I have memories.
Now, you may be discerning that all of this is headed somewhere! And you’re right. Junius Dotson pointed out a progression of thought that becomes a prescription, not necessarily an antidote that drives away the dark cloud, but a treatment that delivers us to a place of joy and hope, where we can look up, get through, and maybe even thrive, while under the cloud.
What have we seen so far? 1. David confirms that he believes and has faith in God; 2. He names his struggle, he is open about how perplexed he is, how lonely and wounded he feels. He names it; 3. He remembers. He remembers.
Junius Dotson wrote, “You get there by remembering – by encouraging yourself, by talking yourself past pain and pressure, by remembering that God has been faithful and good, and God will be again.”
And this pattern that leads to hope has one more component. David continues in v. 5:
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
There it is. Movement #4 in the symphony of hope in the midst of depression. Dotson calls this his favorite part of Psalm 42, David’s “yet praise” attitude. David gets to his “yet praise” place and Junius says, “he fights back depression. He fights back with worship. He fights back with praise. He fights back by getting back to the center.”
About his own struggle and his own decision the author states, “With whatever strength I had in me, I was going to praise God.”
In my work as a Licensed Pastoral Counselor I often recommend that people keep gratitude journals or make gratitude lists. And those ARE good things to do. But a “yet praise” attitude might be even better.
The Psalm continues, and all of it is worthy of more consideration, and most of the pattern I’ve talked about is repeated, but there may be a lot of preachers who feel THIS way: So much to say. So little time.
I think it’s especially important to notice that David does something most good songwriters do at the end of the song; he repeats the chorus!
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
I, actually, have written a few choruses, a few songs. One of them I wrote during an especially troubling time to help me hold onto hope. The chorus says,
I looked up and saw that the sun was shining
I got caught in the eye by a runaway ray
I looked up and noticed a silver lining
On the cloud I thought would be raining on me all day
Hope, Paul says in Romans 5, will never disappoint us. And with whatever strength we have in us, as Junius says, and as you and I can say right now, we are going to praise God.
So … We believe there is a God.
We name our situation, our feelings.
We remember God’s faithfulness.
And we “yet praise.”
Oftentimes, if our depression is episodic or situational, the dark season passes, with the help of God and God’s people, perhaps with the assistance of a therapist, perhaps with short-term medication. Other times, for some of us, depression is more chronic – a condition they used to call melancholia. With therapy, medicine and other treatments, relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ whom you trust, and a commitment to connection with God through praise and worship, you make it through with joy and hope intact, or restored.
Dotson comments: “When you are feeling overwhelmed by financial pressure, it’s time to worship. When you are feeling like a failure after a broken relationship, it’s time to worship. When life is crushing in on you, it’s time to worship. When you’re surrounded by a set of circumstances that threatens your faith, it’s time to worship.”
If you or someone in your life is struggling to bear the weight of it all, especially if thoughts of death or suicide intrude, please memorize and KNOW the number 988. It is an emergency help line for mental health challenges that feel severe. If you aren’t sure how to access resources you may need, please contact one of your pastors or another caring friend. We belong to God. We are not alone. And we can “yet praise.”
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