Is depression a lack of faith?

What the Bible says

First: if you are thinking about ending your life, please reach out now, before you read on. In Korea call 109 (suicide prevention line, 24 hours) or 1588-9191 (Lifeline Korea); elsewhere, a local crisis line or your emergency number. You are not alone.

Christians who live with depression often hear that they just need to pray more, or that real faith would make them joyful. Words like these lay guilt on a heart already heavy. Yet Scripture is full of believers who went through deep despair, and God never called them faithless for it.

Elijah had just seen fire fall from heaven on Mount Carmel when he ran into the wilderness and asked to die (1 Kgs 19:4). God's first response was not a sermon. An angel touched him and gave him bread and water, and when he fell asleep again, the angel came back.

A second time the angel of the LORD returned and touched him, saying, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.”

1 Kgs 19:7

God knew Elijah's strength was spent. He fed him and let him sleep, then spoke in a still, small voice, and at last gave him Elisha as a companion (1 Kgs 19:19-21). God tended body, mind and companionship together.

The writer of Psalm 42 says, "My tears have been my food both day and night" (Ps 42:3). Then he speaks to his own soul.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence.

Ps 42:5

The question comes three times across Psalms 42 and 43 (Ps 42:11, Ps 43:5). The darkness did not lift at once, and he had to reach for hope again and again. That is not a lack of faith. It is faith fighting in the dark. Psalm 88 ends, "darkness is my closest companion" (Ps 88:18), yet it begins, "O LORD, the God of my salvation" (Ps 88:1).

Jeremiah, a faithful prophet, cried, "Cursed be the day I was born!" (Jer 20:14). Paul wrote that "we despaired even of life" (2 Cor 1:8). And in Gethsemane Jesus said, "My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death" (Matt 26:38). If the sinless Son of God knew such sorrow, deep sorrow cannot in itself be sin.

Nor does Scripture set prayer against treatment. Jesus said:

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Matt 9:12

Paul called his companion Luke "the beloved physician" (Col 4:14) and told Timothy to look after his stomach and his "frequent ailments" (1 Tim 5:23). God made us whole people, body, mind and soul, and he cares for all of it. Depression is an illness that needs treatment; people of deep faith suffer from it, and it is no verdict on anyone's faith.

The church's witness

The Fathers insisted that Christ truly grieved, because he took a real human soul. Augustine points out that the Gospels tell us "that Jesus wondered, was angry, was sorrowful" Augustine. Ambrose, on Gethsemane, says simply: "He took upon Him my soul, and my body" Ambrose. There is one who knows a crushed soul from the inside.

Matthew Henry, on Elijah, observes that "great faith is not always alike strong" Matthew Henry. On Psalm 88 he writes:

Thus greatly may good men be afflicted, and such dismal thoughts may they have about their afflictions, and such dark conclusion may they make about their end, through the power of melancholy and the weakness of faith.

Matthew Henry

He adds that "even the children of God's love may sometimes think themselves children of wrath" Matthew Henry. To feel abandoned by God in depression is not the same as being abandoned.

Later witnesses agree. Richard Baxter, a seventeenth-century Puritan pastor, wrote counsel for those suffering from melancholy and urged them to see a physician as well as to seek the comforts of faith. Charles Spurgeon, the nineteenth-century London preacher, spoke openly of the depression that returned to him again and again. Great faith and this illness can live in the same person.

In the original languages

"Downcast" in Psalm 42:5 renders the Hebrew shachach (שָׁחַח), "to be bowed down" or "brought low." Psalm 35:14 uses it of a mourner: "I was bowed down with grief, like one mourning for his mother" (Ps 35:14). Scripture pictures a soul bent double under a weight.

The Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, renders "downcast" with perilypos (περίλυπος), "deeply grieved," the very word Jesus uses in Gethsemane: "My soul is consumed with sorrow." The downcast psalmist's lament was on the lips of the Son of God; depression is not a place God does not know.

Common objections

"Doesn't the Bible tell us to rejoice always and not to be anxious? Being depressed is disobedience." Scripture does say, "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4), and Matthew Henry, on Psalm 42, says that being cast down springs from unbelief and should be prayed against. There is truth here: guilt or spiritual struggle can weigh a person down (Ps 32:3-4), and the psalmist does argue with his own despair. But Henry was speaking of the discouragement every believer wrestles with, and on Psalm 88 he recognised that melancholy can darken good people too. Philippians itself speaks of "sorrow upon sorrow" (Phil 2:27), and elsewhere Paul calls himself "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor 6:10). Joy in the Lord is not a feeling that switches on when commanded; it is trust that holds on to God even in tears. A command to rejoice does not mend a broken leg, nor does it by itself cure an illness of the mind.

"Taking medication or seeing a psychiatrist shows a lack of trust in God." Jesus said that the sick need a doctor. Isaiah had a poultice of figs applied to Hezekiah's boil, even as God promised healing (Isa 38:21). Recovery that comes through means of healing is still God's grace. Depression often tangles together body, sleep, thought and relationships, and medicine and counselling help with each; they do not replace faith. Like the bread and water God gave Elijah, they give strength to walk again. The church should be a place where anyone can safely say, ‘I am getting treatment.’

"I have prayed hard and I am not better. Is something wrong with my faith?" Paul pleaded three times, and the thorn stayed (2 Cor 12:8). The psalmist asked, "How long, O LORD?" (Ps 13:1). Matthew Henry comments: "It is a common temptation, when trouble lasts long, to think that it will last always" Matthew Henry. Recovery takes time, and faith is not measured by how quickly symptoms fade.

Going further

If you are depressed now, take a few gentle steps. Tell one person you trust how you really are. See a doctor or a counsellor. Like Elijah, start with small things: eating and sleeping. If you have no words to pray, read Psalm 42 as your prayer; the Spirit himself intercedes for us "with groans too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). Let the church share the load: "Carry one another's burdens" is for you too (Gal 6:2).

If someone near you is depressed, stay with them rather than lecture them; Paul says, "encourage the fainthearted" (1 Thess 5:14). Rather than promising that prayer will fix it, pray with them, and offer to go to the doctor with them.

You might ask yourself: Have I told God honestly how I am? What keeps me from asking for help? Who near me is quietly worn out?

To read further, see Does suffering have meaning? and How can I overcome anxiety?, and read 1 Kings 19 and Psalms 42–43 slowly.

Once more: if you are thinking about ending your life, please reach out now. In Korea call 109 (24 hours) or 1588-9191 (Lifeline Korea), or 119 in an emergency; elsewhere, a local crisis line or your emergency number. You are not alone, and help is there.