The Fuel That Destroys DepressionSample

The Fuel

Years ago, I suffered from clinical depression, and I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. It feels like a great darkness that descends on you, a great sense of hopelessness—like the future is taken away. All you want to do is crawl into yourself and hide, wishing that these effects would somehow go away. 

I can speak from personal experience about this. I have been there. I know the lasting effects depression can have on a person’s life and well being. When someone comes and tells a person dealing with depression to just snap out of it, it is one of the worst things people can say. Depression is not about going through a bad day, a rough patch, a blue day, or something that lasts a couple of days and then it is gone. We are talking about what is described as clinical depression, which is like a cloud of darkness that descends upon an individual’s life. It is not something that you can suddenly snap out of. There is actually a Biblical process that the person dealing with depression can go through in order to come out of it. 

Some people ask me if it took a long time for me to overcome clinical depression. It did. I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I tried many cures that did not work. I took a natural approach to it. and a medical approach; both fell short. Then I discovered what I like to call “the fuel that destroys depression,” which became a journey for me. I went on that journey and stayed on that journey until depression was absolutely destroyed and broken over my life. I can look back, and it has never returned.

We need to know that our thoughts determine the outcome of our life. The Bible is filled with this truth. This is the truth we are going to talk about today. It is not in a capsule form, not in an injection form, or some home remedy. And I am not discounting any of that. Still, we need to know the Bible has a cure, a fuel that will destroy depression: hope, which eventually brings happiness.

Hope and happiness go together. To have a life of hope is to have a life of happiness. We need to understand that happiness is not a life void of problems and difficulties; rather, it is a deep inner awareness that God is guiding the outcome of our life. A life without hope is hopeless. Hope is an indispensable part of a happy life. Hope is so powerful. In my own dark hours, it was hope that lifted me and brought happiness, joy, and the expectation of a greater tomorrow.