One of my observations is that those who seem to particularly have a prophetic gift in church often have a particular sensitivity to others and what is going on around them. It seems that the spiritual gift particularly aligns with the more natural, common grace gifting of sensitivity, intuition and emotional insight. It also strikes me that the Biblical prophets were often described as receiving and carrying a burden from the Lord.
This got me wondering whether there is a tie up with depression. Elijah seemed to show signs of depression and perhaps John the Baptist too? Indeed, I would push it wider, not just those who have a prophetic gift in the overt sense of the word. Personally I don’t consider myself a prophet in that sense. However, it does seem that there is at times a correlation between depression and artistic gifts around song and hymn writing (think William Cowper) and I’m increasingly aware of contemporary examples of pastors and preachers struggling with this. I think that when you read between the lines, there’s evidence historically too of pastors, theologians, leaders who struggled with depression before we had the language of modern psychiatry to name it. Indeed, some of them were also probably prophetic but without the contemporary charismatic language for this.
I think there can be a few implications to this. First of all, greater sensitivity seems to accompany depression. This is a positive. There’s often a stronger sense, an ability to feel what is happening around you and for some to soak up and carry those feelings. Not always, sometimes the temptation can be to become inward looking and there is the danger of self pity )remember I’m writing as someone with experience of depression). This can be a good thing. It means that you are keenly alert to when something is significant.
However, there are two implications with a downside. First, the burden can crush. It can contribute to depression. It can become too much to carry. Secondly, one of the things I’m aware of is the tendency and temptation to catastrophise so that things can become bigger in your mind than they actually are.
With that in mind, I’ve got a couple of tips for those who are around people who struggle with depression.
- Pay attention to what they are feeling and experiencing. God might be using it to speak.
- Be ready to step in to help share/bear a burden when it is a right burden but is crushing the person.
- Help them to get/keep perspective. This means look out for when they are catastrophising/spiralling. Help them out of that not by completely dismissing what they are experiencing/seeing but by helping them to get it into the right perspective and see clearly. (I’ve some further thoughts on this for a later post).
I hope this is helpful. I would also encourage those of you who suffer with depression. A little while back I contributed to a book called “The pastor with a thorn in his side”. Its title arises out of Paul’s description of a thorn in his flesh. Sometimes you will want the thorn removed. There’s nothing wrong with that, depression is an illness so it is right to want to, and to ask to, be healed. However, the Lord told Paul “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” God may well use that thorn both for your own blessing and that of others.
Faithroots 