A very important aspect of understanding the impact of anxiety and depression on you as a Christian is to realise that distress affects our relationship with God. A common statement said by people who are feeling depressed or anxious is ‘The trouble is that not only do I feel constantly tired, fed-up and worried, but it also seems as if God has left me too. I have no joy or peace, and whereas once I used to feel God was very close to me, now he seems a million miles away.’ So not only may we feel anxious or depressed, but suddenly God may seem remote too.

Do you feel like this at the moment? Yes  No 

If you are feeling like this, Chapter 5 of the book (Maintaining your walk with God – practical things you can do that can make a difference) has been written for you.

Bible example: This experience of feeling cut off from God seems to be the experience of the psalmist in Psalm 42.

"As a deer longs for flowing streams, So my soul longs for you, o God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, While people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God?’

I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’"

(Psalm 42 v. 1-3, 9a NIV Version).

Not only did the psalmist, who once ‘went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God', (v. 4b) feel the remoteness of a God he once had a close intimacy with, but he kept encountering people who contributed to his depressed mood by challenging the existence, or certainly the presence, of what was previously a source of comfort and strength.

So if you are feeling this way, be encouraged. Many great servants of God have travelled the same path and asked the same questions. But the question remains - why God should seem so remote when I feel like this and need him the most? One of the reasons why we can feel like this may be due to a false understanding of our own nature. We may have a picture of the human personality with different watertight compartments labelled “Mind”, “Body”and “Spirit” and because we see these as different parts of our personality we fail to understand how they relate to and interact with each other. Just because our mind or body is suffering we sometimes do not recognise that our spiritual life is likely to be affected too. The Bible does not describe different compartments of a human being; whilst Scripture speaks of the heart and the mind and the spirit of the individual it also recognises that we are a unity and each part of our existence affects, and is affected by, all of the others. Good physical health is likely to encourage good mental health, and both are likely to affect the spiritual aspects of our life; poor mental health may well go with poor physical health and both adversely affect how we feel and think about our relationship with God.

Common thoughts and fears include:

• Remembering mistakes and sins from the past and dwelling on these excessively in ways that lead to self-condemnation and guilt.

• Thinking that you are cut off from God, or have displeased him, or that you can no longer feel his presence as you did in the past.

• Thinking that others in the Church think badly of you, or that if you told them how you really felt, they would find you out and be critical of you/your faith as a Christian.

• Fearing that you had committed the “unforgivable sin”.

Learning how to challenge such thoughts is described in Chapter 3 of the book.

Reference:

I'm not supposed to feel like this: A Christian self-help approach to depression and anxiety. Williams, C., Richards, P and Whitton, I. Hodder Christian Books (2002). ISBN 0340786396

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