As a Christian,
I was taught that God is our joy and
happiness. For me, it was too good to be
true. I had always found God to be a
great kill-joy, he was not interested in our life and the only thing that He needed was unquestioned
obedience. The Christian background that I came from had too many restrictions.
It was as if God wanted to control every nitty-gritty things of my life. I felt
suffocated under it. So in front of me were two unconquerable forces – religion
and God. A religion that had restricted me and a God who gave license to it, in
both I never found any joy.
Something that I find lacking in the Christian
circle was the lack of understanding of this disorder. Oftentimes we (as
Christians) brand it as a spiritual battle and leave the person to fight
alone. We say “brother will pray for you,
see you next week, and take care!” I recognise
it is a spiritual battle but more than that you are dealing with a person. Most
of the time a person who suffers wouldn’t say “hey I have depression! Please help me!” There can be an exception to it as well some would open up but
a majority would like to sit behind a closed door. I recollect the time when I
was in depression I used to search online for spiritual counselling and found none. None of the Christian ministries or
websites was aware of it. I believe it’s high time that we recognise this malady and start finding
solutions for it.
I would like to share my experience of “what happens when we box people?” I
joined workplace a few years back and
they used to box people according to their temperaments. So I used to hear this often times there goes the
phlegmatic! Oh, he is choleric or melancholic! It was a huge blow to
my recovery. I used to think “Man because
of this particular temperament that I
belong to I won’t be able to do the things that the others could do.”
People there never expected that I would act differently
than the description of the temperament they had boxed me in. So in my mind,
I was thinking why should I change if they are not expecting a difference in
me? Though ‘change’ was vociferously preached! Later on, I understood that if I allow myself to continue like this I’m
proving their theory. So I decided to change, it was not a change to perform.
It was a change to fulfil the purpose of transforming
the lives of people. To experience the joy that can come into our life because
of transformation in someone else’s life. Another thing that propelled me was
the need of God for me to change, if I hadn’t changed, the plans that he had
for my life to bring transformation in the world would be unfulfilled.
It
is the person who is important than the religious rites or rituals.
It is high time that we try to understand the people who are with us. Yes, there is power in prayer but more than
that it would make more sense if we can spend time with that person who is
feeling low. In the scripture we find the good shepherd leaving the 99 to find
the one who was lost. We don’t see the shepherd asking the sheep “why did you leave?” “What made you stray
away from the group?” the shepherd held closely the sheep to his chest and
brought it back to a place of security. As
a Christian isn’t this something that we are supposed to do, to bring back the
lost? They can be lost because of depression, anxiety, wrong direction or
something else. The question is that are we bringing back the one who have
lost? One more thing that I want to add here the sheep was lost but it didn’t
rebel and go! We can save the lost but pray for the rebellious that God will
have mercy on them and will change their heart.
In my life, it
was because of that one person that I was found. I have seen extreme levels of
love in that person. I have seen a leadership that influences people to become
better. Watching that one person exemplifying “Christ-likeness” in personal
life challenges me to become one. It was because of this one person that I came
to the real understanding of God. The picture that I have of God now is not
that of a kill-joy but a joy giver. God is a strong anchor on which we can put
our hope on.
I believe we have to be aware of what is happening around.
We can’t stay aloof to what is happening in the world. It was William
Wilberforce a
Christian who voiced out to abolish the slave
trade. We should be Christians living in the two worlds – natural and
supernatural. We can’t neglect either! We
need prayer as Christ says to put “this kind
won’t go unless through prayer and fasting” (Mat 17: 21) we also need to have compassion on people
as He had on them. (Matt 9:36) we should create a secure ground where people
can come and say that “I’m going through depression and hard times”. Not to get
surprised and ostracise them by saying “your walk isn’t right with the Lord! Or say
if you read your bible everything will be all right” when the woman who was
caught in the act of adultery Christ didn’t take the stones to throw at her. He
created a secure place for her to live
and face the ones who judged her to be a vile
woman. We need to have the same place for people in our life. We need to create
places of security where they would run into and feel safe Churches needs to be
that kind of place. People know that they have screwed up they don’t need the
attestation of the church. What they need are
care and compassion.
Let us ask God to give us the grace to accept people
and help them grow into the stature of Christ. As Paul puts it “We proclaim
Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we
may present every man complete in Christ.” Colossians 1:28.
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