This series comes as a result of a friend who battles with depression asking that I write something on the topic that may help her. I promised her that I would do it a few months ago. This series looks at depression from a biblical perspective. I hope it helps anyone struggling with depression in some way.
Note: I encourage you to read the earlier posts associated with this series to give yourself the best opportunity to get the most out of this topic. Click on the following links for the first two installments of the series: Part I & Part II
Root Causes of Anxiety
UNBELIEF: The Greek word for unbelief can be translated as faithlessness. Faithlessness means “Lack of trust” or “No trust”. Where there is no trust, there is a lack of security or insecurity. Now, the thing about insecurity is that it does not like itself…(Selah)…but it is always looking for security. To make itself secure, insecurity will put up walls, try to control every situation, and act in its own self-interest to protect itself.
Put another way, unbelief in the heart of a person leads to insecurity, which may then leads to self-loathing, a controlling spirit, loneliness of heart (due to putting walls up), being critical of oneself, acting selfishly, and not being able to truly connect with others. These things are interconnected and form a vicious cycle that repeat itself time and again – it is the repetition of this cycle that lead to depression (heaviness of the heart) as there seems to be no way out.
FEAR: Biblically, the opposite of fear is love (see 1 John 4:18). Our hearts cannot live in a vacuum. It is either going to be filled with love or it is going to be filled with fear. In fact, it can be said that the absence of love is the presence of fear.
The love that I speak of is not the eros (romantic love), sterego (love between friends), or phileo (brotherly love). The love that I speak of is agape love. This type of love is committed and sacrificial. It is the type of love that is given based on the heart of the giver and not the performance of the givee. This is the love that makes one feel accepted and gives one a sense of identity.
When those that mean the most to us do not model agape love to us, it creates a void or wound in our hearts. This void or wound tells us that we are not worthy, causes us to try to measure up to a standard that the world throws our way to feel worthy, and causes heaviness of the heart whenever we cannot fill that void with our performance. Depression occurs when we feel rejected…selah…or when whatever gives us a sense of identity is removed.
IGNORANCE: I have heard it said before that ignorance is bliss. I beg to differ. There is nothing bliss about ignorance, for what you don’t know can kill one. The only people that say ignorance is bliss are those that do not know how to respond properly to the knowledge they have acquired.
The problem with ignorance is that it makes us powerless. Being powerless to effect any change, we become slaves to the whims and whams of life. We are tossed to and fro by every way of emotion and become a bit of a piñata. Perhaps the biggest folly of ignorance is that it makes us highly susceptible to believing the lies we tell ourselves, lies others tells us, lies our experiences teach us, and the lies that the devil tells us. These lies themselves can become the root of the fear and insecurity that we exist within.
Conversely, knowledge of the truth will lead to faith, which then shapes the thinking of our heart. This is turn shapes our emotions, action, and results.
The last statement begins the journey into how anxiety may be conquered. Please stand by for the next installment – Overcoming Anxiety
I will no longer let ignorance be the source of wreckage in my life
SuperChamp 