Depression

The number one health problem in the Western world is depression. Depression is the leading cause of suicide, and fifteen per cent of major depressives will suicide. Depression occurs twice as many times in females as in males and it occurs more in the forty to fifty age bracket. Of course, it can occur at any stressful time of life. Depression is not new. Man has always been subject to depression. The earliest book in the Bible records the acute depression of a man called Job.

After suffering the loss of his possessions, children and then enduring friends who couldn’t understand him, he exhibits all the symptoms of a depressed person. Then there was Elijah, David and Jeremiah; all who were similarly depressed. Depression is an emotional state marked by a feeling of sadness worthlessness, dejections and worry. Depressed people look sad, feel empty, lonely, pessimistic, rejected and unloved. Their eating and sleeping is affected and if agitated find it hard to sit still; eventually they can become delusional.

Actually nearly everyone at some time in there in life becomes depressed. I can remember a few years ago hitting the wall. I’m a phlegmatic personality which means I generally just roll with the punches and I don’t really usually feel depressed at all, but one year I lost my pastor, my assistant left, my father died, I lost a child, shifted house and I got to the point where I couldn't face another problem or loss. We have all experienced that; we feel down when we are disappointed when you lose someone or something close to you. Depression can be brought on by stress like loss, fatigue, a blow to a person’s sense of value, divorce, self-effort, and attacks by Satan, wrong priorities, viruses, childbirth or even arriving at middle age.

I’m not talking about clinical depression caused by organic or hormonal imbalance and I’m not saying that if a person is suicidal they shouldn't see their doctor and receive some antidepressant treatment, so they can get some sleep and begin to recover, but I’m talking about the normal stress-induced depressions that do not have to become clinical depressions.

Dr Minrith of world-famous Mayer clinic says. “The emotional pains of clinical depression are totally avoidable. To avoid it, one must choose happiness as a way of life and follow the right path to obtain it”

In other words, happiness is a choice.

Depression is not caused by the loss or the rejection or the initial problem but, it is always because of our response to the initial problem is wrong. We don’t respond to God ward but we react manward. The most common reason for depression is anger. Often we are angry with someone but we think it not Christian to express your anger, so we bottle it up and say nothing. Guess what? You got depressed until you just had to say something, and when you did they might not have felt better, but you did!
Friend, don’t clam up, instead, it is always to best to speak up early before you have to blow up.