DEPRESSION

“Why is light given to those in misery,  and life to the bitter of soul?” (3:20)

Many commentators on Job have felt that the sweeping change that comes over the man in Chapter 3, from radiant saintliness to unseemly despair, is not quite believable. Yet by this stage it should be clear that an entirely new trial has now overtaken Job: the trial of depression, of deep mental and spiritual trauma. The terrible disasters of the Prologue Job managed to weather admirably, with piety intact. But now the battle front has shifted, subtly but calamitously, from outside to inside. Now it is Job’s inner psychic life, his very soul, that is under direct satanic attack. In the words of Proverbs 18:14, “A man’s spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?”

Is it really true that God would allow Satan direct access to the very soul of a believer for the purpose of untrammeled oppression? Listen to what John of the Cross says about this: “In proportion as God is guiding the soul and communicating with it, He gives the Devil leave to act with it after the same manner.” Elsewhere John states that God certainly does “permit the Devil to deal with the soul in the same measure and mode in which He conducts and deals with it Himself. . . . Thus the Devil cannot protest his rights, claiming that he is not given the opportunity to conquer the soul, as was his complaint in the story of Job.”

It is important to realize that nowhere in this book are we given reason to believe that Job’s depression, in and of itself, is ever viewed by the Lord as being his own “fault.” On the contrary, in view of the clear mandate for unlimited harassment (short of death) given to Satan in the Prologue, we are constrained to see Job’s psychic trauma as part and parcel with his other trials, just one more of the Devil’s assaults upon his faith. In fact the message that begins to unfold in Chapter 3 is that depression in a believer, far from being unforgivable, is one of the things that the Lord is most ready and eager to forgive. It may even be something that does not call for forgiveness at all, and far from being a sign of loss of faith it may actually demonstrate the presence of the sort of genuine and deeply searching faith that God always honors.

Job teaches us that there are times (as paradoxical as this may sound) when spiritual hope can take the form of despair. As someone has said, “Only the desperate are truly hopeful.” To be sure, there are varieties of despair and depression that are without hope at all, that are full of godless self-pity and destructiveness. But there is also a kind of despair that is the only authentic response that a truly godly temperament can make when confronted by certain situations. There is a kind of despair that is realistic, courageous, and persevering in the highest degree. This is the despair that a person will have when he knows that things are wrong—that they are all wrong—and that they absolutely must get better or else he will die. The reason he despairs, then, is that he knows in his heart that there is a better way, and he has made up his mind that he will not rest until he finds it. He will not settle for anything less. Such a person reaches a point of staggering abandonment, being prepared to live with an inconceivable weight of sensual and psychological deprivation for the sake of holding out for deep spiritual truth.

This is not despair; this is hope. It is like a spiritual hunger strike, an all-consuming protest staged against the world’s complacency. A lazy and self-satisfied person will never despair in this manner. Only a person who believes ardently in God will have the courage to endure such despair. Only a person who hopes with all his heart, and whose soul therefore cries out day and night to the living God for help, can live with spiritual famine. Wrote the great Catholic painter Georges Rouault, “I believe in suffering; it is not feigned in me. This is my only merit. I was not made to be so terrible.”

What sort of hope do most churchgoers have today? Is it anything more than a grim stoicism, the ability to keep a stiff upper lip in the midst of life’s fray? Is it the sort of hope that hides from reality? If the average Christian fell into despair, would he even know it?

Mason, M. (2002). The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything. Crossway.