[00:00:00] Good morning, central. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. So glad you're here. Hey, whichever campus you're on. If you're experiencing this on one of our different campuses, man, we're glad you're here. And then we have an online community that literally is around the world. In fact, west all the way in Denmark. [00:00:15] Welcome to you less welcome to Karen. Who's an Iowa and all the rest of you, wherever you are on the planet. We are all in this together and thanks for being a part of it. So today what we're going to do is we're going to conclude a series that we began about six weeks. It's called through the valley. [00:00:29] And we've been talking about something that churches don't like to talk about. We been talking about the issues of mental health and one of the things that we've been trying to communicate throughout this series is that we all go through the valley. And the worst thing that can happen to you is that you go through the valley or. [00:00:46] Because you didn't have to, God didn't want you to. So the subtitle has been your not alone. The worst experiences of our life are when we're struggling and we feel like nobody gets us and nobody's there and nobody can help us. So that's what we've been talking about. Now. I want to say this, that there is a lot of subjects that are so fun to talk about, and I get excited because I love to laugh and I love to have a good. [00:01:13] Uh, the subjects we're going to land on today is not fun. So I'm just going to tell you up front, it's just not fun and not a lot to laugh about. So we're not going to be cutting up and it's going to be heavy. All right, we're going to talk about depression. All right. It seemed like the appropriate place for us to end this series. [00:01:30] Now I'm going to hope that you don't get overwhelmed. Hope you don't walk out depressed. Okay. That's not. But the goal is to say, can we give words to this? Can we talk about it? And yes we can. And yes, we're going to, here's the problem that so many of us struggle with. All right. And as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about, well, I love to fish and I don't think that's a secret I have on, I have a boat and on my boat, I have what's called the graph and the graph does something that is very, very important if you want to fish. [00:02:01] Okay. And if you want to fish the way I fish. Okay. What what happens is, is when you put your boat on the lake, everything on the top of the lake on the surface generally looks smooth and calm and everything is flat and pretty much uninteresting. There's no Hills, there's no mountains. There's nothing on the top of the lake, right. [00:02:21] Is surrounded by that stuff. But the lake is. And if you thought everything underneath the surface was exactly as it was on the surface, you grossly misunderstand what's going on underneath the boat. And so what they do is they've created these things called graphs. It looks just like this. This is a garment graph. [00:02:39] And what it does is it literally sends sonar down underneath your boat and it picks up on what's underneath the surface. Okay. And then, so you can see there's a ship that sunk or at a boat. And so you can start to see now, the reason I wanted to show you. Is to say this when we come to church and we gathered together and none of us has sonar. [00:03:01] All of us have the ability to on the surface, make an appearance. However, we want to appear in a fact in the day and age that we're living in, we come to church and for the last 18 months we've been told to mask up and we come to church looking like this. There's nothing wrong with that. Not in any way, knocking that don't miss it. [00:03:22] But we do this, they tell us for protection and you have to ask the question, it's a tough one. Are you protecting yourself or is this for protecting others? And the end of the day, it really doesn't matter because we understand the mask is for the purpose of protection. I want to suggest that what often we do is we come to church and we put on a mask that nobody can see, but it's very real and we are hiding behind it for protection. [00:03:48] And so we come and we try to let no one beneath the surface. We keep everything up there and nobody has sonar to be able to kind of see underneath and beyond. And so we just kind of, it's all good. It's all good. We've talked about this all through this series, but deep down inside, we know it's not all good. [00:04:08] We've talked about physical health. And, you know, we understand what physical health is, is good to be healthy, and we go, amen. It's going to be, hell I hope I live a long life. I hope I'm healthy. All of us understand though, that we go through seasons of unhealth and that's probably not a word, but it is now seasons of unhealth. [00:04:26] Meaning I caught a cold, I caught the flu. I have a migraine. Whenever you go through a season of unhealth with a physical issue, you know that what you need. You need some medication you need some time you need some sleep, you need some, whatever. It takes some aspirin, whatever, and nothing weird about coming to church and going, Hey, you know, I got a headache, you know, weird out over that. [00:04:50] We all also go through bouts of unhealth in mental ways. And don't get weird about this. It just means that there's just seasons when I feel overwhelmed at work. And I've worried about. I feel stressed out about I'm fearful of, because stuff happens, but it's really weird. We don't handle it the same way. [00:05:14] Whenever we're facing some bout of unhealth with our physical, mental, not our physical or mental, we feel ashamed. We feel like I've got to hide this. I'm embarrassed by it. I didn't want anyone to know. And so we go under the surface. Quietly in desperation, hoping nobody sees what's behind it all. And I just think that's a huge problem. [00:05:38] So we're gonna, we're going to talk about depression today. Now. Have I made it clear? This is not going to be overly uplifting. Can I get an amen? All right. We got it right, but let's talk about it. And as we start to talk about it again, there's just a couple of things I want to be really, really clear about. [00:05:53] Number one, no intention. We're not going to clear up everyone's depression today in the next. And so, you know, I'm so glad I came to church today. I was depressed and now I'm not, that's not going to happen. The point is not to do that. The point is to give you something, to think about something, to ponder something to process. [00:06:09] Okay. So that's, what's going to happen. So that's the first understanding. Second understanding. There's no exception here. When it comes to depression, every one of us have has experienced this thing. We're talking about. Every one of us, we've all been depressed. Now. I'm not saying you're living depressed, but you felt depressed. [00:06:28] Things happen in life. It's a common experience of humanity. And I think it's really, really important that we understand that. And it doesn't make you weird that you are, um, any number of things can bring on depression, which most of which we've already talked about, there can be a traumatic event in your life and experience that sets you just sideways. [00:06:49] You had no idea what. It can be fear. It can be anxiety could be stress. It could be guilt. It could be shame. It could be an abusive relationship. You're in some people would say I'm depressed and I don't even know why you can be depressed and not even understand how you got there. I don't know. What's I just filled this funk, man. [00:07:06] It's just overwhelming me right now. People who experience it, say, you know, if I were trying to sum it up, I would just it's it's extreme sadness. It's fatigue. It's a sense of hopelessness. It's about anxiety. It's about mood swings. All of this stuff is in this issue of depression. Now, people who live there, meaning they would go, I I'm spending way too much time. [00:07:32] And we'll talk about that in a moment. They'll, they'll say sentences where you listened to it and you go, what does it feel like? And they'll go, I'll quote, some people. I feel like I'm carrying around a bag of some mint for. Just a lot of weight. I just feel this real heaviness on me. Somebody else said it this way. [00:07:50] It's, it's like being in a hole. You can't dig out of, or a net. You can't free yourself from just caught up in it. I'm just stuck in it. I want to get out of it, but I just can't find my way out. I think the best one I've ever heard is this one right here. I wanted to write down exactly what I felt, but somehow the paper stayed empty and I could not have described it any better. [00:08:16] They suggest that it's the feeling you have when you're waiting for test results to come back that anxiety, that anxious that like, oh, hi, and I'm hopeful, but I'm scared. And they would go that's it. So prolonged sense of that. There's no test coming, but it feels like that you might not be aware of this, but depression, as we understand it today was relatively unknown in the past. [00:08:41] In fact, the study. The mental health issue of depression goes only back to the beginning of the 20th century. That's when the science that we now are living in, that's trying to understand what happens when we become depressed, really got rooted and you know, the cause and the effect, and all of that's been growing since then. [00:09:02] Not oppression has been around as long as people have been on. And the Bible is interesting because the Bible does not directly relate anything to depression. It doesn't come out and say, here's the three things you do when you feel depressed. It will definitely talk about the things that can lead you into depression and what you ought to do for your anxiety, stress, those kinds of things. [00:09:21] But it doesn't directly give you any insight, but, but people who have been on the planet have felt depressed. Ever since they'd been on the planet. So the Bible, all you gotta do is just pay attention to the people and listen to the things that come out of their mouth. And in fact, I wish I had time cause we could do an extended Bible study on this, but let me just show you a couple of things and, and listen to the sentences that certain leaders in the Bible spoke like Moses, Moses, when you talk about like phenomenal leaders, you got to talk about. [00:09:55] But Moses you might know was a very reluctant leader. He didn't want to do what God wanted him to do. He felt inadequate. And then he was leading the people and the people kept screwing up and he kept trying to defend them before God. And at one point he was, it was so dark. In fact, he says this in Exodus 32 32, the words of Moses, but now please forgive their sin. [00:10:15] But if not, then blot me out of the book. You understand what he's saying? These people screw up so much. Would you just leave them alone? God, they're messed up, but if you can't just remove me, man, just get me off the planet. Just take me away. David David was the king of Kings, not Jesus, but he was the king of Kings. [00:10:41] The earthly Kings. Before the king of Kings came Jesus. He was the one who set up the king of Israel. And it's interesting because he had such high high moments in his life, killed Goliath. It all kinds of incredible things. And he experienced some real lows. Remember the thing with best Shiva got her pregnant, not as wife, it's a huge mess. [00:11:08] They prayed and prayed and prayed that the son would be spared, but the son died and he was just agony. Just agony. If you read the Psalms, many of which are credited today. He in there, he just, the songs are like rife with depression and it's not bad. It's just there. It's just the sense of despair and frustration. [00:11:31] Uh, David says this in Psalm 42 11. Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me. That's dark. I just feel so bad. God, God. Why, why do I feel so bad, Joe? We talk about. Jeff had everything and he lost it all. And, uh, in jump through 11, it says, why did I not perish at birth and die as I came from the womb? [00:11:57] Well, that was uplifting. Amen. You getting the drift here? These are the people in the Bible. Jeremiah, Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. He wrote the book of Lamentations, not a victory dance. As all these things who was so sorrowful for in Jeremiah 2018, he said, why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow? [00:12:20] And in my days in shame, wow, that was uplifting. Jonah, Jonah, Jonah, with the whale, Jonah said, now Lord, take away my life for it is better for me to die than to live. [00:12:36] Just listen to what people say and you'll see. The commonality of the darkness that people have lived through. All right. The poster child though, the poster child to me has got to be Elijah. And there's an episode. In fact, here's what I need you to do wherever you are, wherever you are. Take your Bible, open it to first Kings chapter 19. [00:12:54] So you guys with me here first Kings chapter 19, and while you're finding first Kings chapter 19, cause I want you to see the first four verses in first Kings. You'll never understand them. If I don't explain to you first Kings 18, or if you're not familiar with it. So give me a moment to just tell you what's going on in first Kings 18. [00:13:15] So the first Kings 19 will make sense here's what's happening. So this man of God, Elijah, prophet of God, a very powerful man is kind of juxtaposed against a wicked king. And his wife is the wicked king is a guy named Ahab. His wife is a woman named Jessie. The decibel, if you've ever heard the derogatory or pejorative named Jezza bell, that's her, there's a wicked couple Elijah prays that it won't rain. [00:13:41] And so God cuts the rain off Ahab and Jezebel, or just put out with him. And then they have profits of two foreign gods that they serve. This is the, the kingdom is supposed to be representing Galloway, but he's about the, what are called the bales and the. And these are foreign gods for all, for the sake of this. [00:14:05] And they have profits, they have ministers that would represent them 400 and 450, uh, collectively. And so the people are being kind of drawn by the king and his wife over to the bales and the Astros and this guy, Elijah representing God fills the need to stand toe to toe with them. So he challenges them to. [00:14:29] First Kings chapter 18 has one of the most classic episodes in the entire Bible is a story. You probably understand it's this showdown between the 400 and 400 profits and the 450 prophets representing those two foreign gods and Elijah. And the contest was very simple. Build an altar, put an animal on the altar, pray to your gods bales like fire, God, pray that he would light the altar on fire consume. [00:14:55] And so the contest begins. They go first there's 450 and then 400, there's two different groups and they're all circling and chanting and marching and screaming and cutting themselves. And hours passed, nothing happens. Elijah's starts mocking them and then they just kind of go, okay. And then he says, all right, let's get this altar ready. [00:15:16] So they cut another bowl. They put it on that. And Elijah goes, this is way too simple. He says, look, we're in a drought, right? Yeah. Get some water. Well, we don't have much get what we have and they begin to douse the wood on this altar. They just douse it and he says, Dallas it again. And then Dallas it again. [00:15:35] There's like no way. This is going to light. It's soaked. And he goes, okay, now this should be pretty obvious who God is. And he just simply praises prayer. And he says, God liked the thing on fire. The thing goes up in flames. Everyone's like blown away. Everyone's going, those guys are false prophets. That's the real God. [00:15:54] And Elijah says, take those 400. And those 450 prophets take them down into the valley and slaughter them. And they do, they kill them. The next thing that happens at the tail end of first Kings 18. And again, this is not exactly how it happened for. Uh, Elijah began to pray for rain and he saw a little cloud off in the horizon. [00:16:12] He knew rain was coming first Kings 19. Now you're going to understand it says this first Kings 19 one through four. Now Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezza Belson a message to a light. To say, may the gods deal with me? Be it ever so severely if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them. [00:16:45] What, what, what was that as a death threat? Elijah, I'm going to kill you. Uh, one woman. Who's just been unrelenting. So Elijah just having stood against the 400 and the 450 prophets seeing this incredible thing of God. He said to Jesse Bell, who do you think you are? That's not what he did. Look what he did. [00:17:12] Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. Don't miss it. That was a scorned woman right there, man. Be afraid when he came to our Shiva in Judah, he left his servant there. While he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. You stay. And I'm going to go hide farther in and off. He goes, he came to a broom, Bush sat down under it and prayed that he might die. [00:17:40] I've had enough Lord. He said, take my life. I am no better than my ancestors. Can I show you that last verse stare at it? I have had enough Lord take my life. I am no better than my ancestors. God, I can't do this anymore. This is deep, deep depression. Now he's basically saying, God, I want to die. I want to die right now. [00:18:02] Right here. Right this moment. Now I want to tell you something I'm absolutely positive. He didn't want to die. Why do I know he didn't want to die there? A very easy way to explain he didn't want to die. Why do I know he didn't want to die? Because there was an angry woman named Jessie bell who was more than willing to accommodate them. [00:18:21] If that's what he really wanted. All you had to do is go surrender himself to her. She. He didn't want to die. He was depressed after a huge victory. He drops into this deep, deep depression. I want to say this because I think it's important that we understand being depressed is as common. It's not that make you weird to make it unusual. [00:18:48] We all experience pressure on us. It takes an effect. Like I was thinking about this, I grabbed this actually my wife's couch, but technically I think she's here. I'm sorry, honey. I didn't ask. No, I, I grabbed this off our couch and uh, I did this to just kind of make the point, you know, it's interesting. If you depressed the pillow, you press in you depress it. [00:19:17] Guess what? It just bounces back. It just bounces. It didn't matter how you press it. You can press it this way. You can press it this way. You can do it this way. And you know what, as soon as you let up on the pressure of the thing, just bounces back. This is how we're supposed to be. Not that you can't take any pressure. [00:19:33] You were designed to take pressure, but as soon as the pressure alleviates, you should bounce back. The question is, how long does it take you to bounce back? If I were to put this in some sort of a box and seal it and cram it in there, you know, force it in there, leave it in there for a long time. Then you open it up. [00:19:53] You can imagine it's not going to bounce back. This is the problem. I don't know why they've come up with this, but I know that this is kind of the understanding that when depression, lingers, and as short as two weeks, When it just goes beyond two weeks, you know, you're dealing with something, you got to give some attention to there's something going on and it needs to be looked out. [00:20:21] So I want to explain to you that the Bible doesn't directly address depression. It addresses issues that can lead you to depression. One verse that I want to show you is Proverbs 1225. It says anxiety and a man's heart weighs him down. But a good word makes him glad that Hebrew word there is to way down is to press in, is to depress. [00:20:51] That's the closest we can get, and anxiety can do that to you, which again, we've talked about. So let me be crystal clear about what depression is not. Let me, I want to say this as clear as I know how, and I hope this is as helpful as it can be. All right. Now, listen. Depression is not first and foremost, a sin. [00:21:12] It's not a sin. It can't be a sin. If the Bible never even addresses it, it's not a sin. You wake up, you're feeling overwhelmed. It's not a sin. The second thing I want to say, it's not, it's not a sign of weakness if you were stronger, uh, it's not a sign of weakness. It's what we say. It kind of snap out of it as if somehow. [00:21:38] Like that easy. No, it's not a sin. It's not a sign of weakness. The third thing, it's not, it's not a secret that should be kept tragically. Um, too often we mask up and we there's no one anyone to know, and it only is going to get worse as you do this thing alone. It's not a secret fourth. It's not a shortcoming that you should be. [00:22:04] Now, why am I saying all this? Because if, if we weren't feeling what we were feeling, we'd be more willing to talk about it. And I know we're not. So we feel these things, the fifth thing I need to say that it's not, it's not a simple problem with a simple solution. You, you might not know this, but all depression isn't alike and it's not a one size fits all. [00:22:28] Not all depressed. People are depressed for the. Reasons in the same ways, we know have certain kinds of depressions that we've been able to identify like seasonal effects, affective disorder, which is when you live up in a place where it rains all the time, like Oregon or Washington, maybe in the winter. [00:22:45] And it's always cloudy and people go, I just, I get this way. Every winter seasonal, effective disorder. And we know about after having a baby, we know of like postpartum depression. Okay. There's seven of these that they've been able to identify. Every one of them takes a different way to cope. It's caused by something different. [00:23:05] It takes a different way to cope. I want to just spend a few moments. I have, I want to talk to you about two of these, and I do this with some fear and reluctance because I, the chances of me being misunderstood in the next few minutes are so high, then I'm going to pray that doesn't happen. Let me explain to you about two w the first is what is kind of the big one is called major depressive disorder. [00:23:29] It's known as clinical depression. What is clinical depression? And then according to the American psychiatric association, one in 15 adults will experience this in any given year. One in six of us will experience this in our lifetime often. Not always often. And this is where it's going to get controversial by a chemical imbalance in our brain, a chemical imbalance. [00:23:57] I don't want to get overly clinical in talking about this, but this is one of a number of mood disorders that people who studied the brain can identify and they go, this is what it's about. Um, in your brain, there are these neuro-transmitters, um, that take and. They sent like message as a cost. What did rights that communicate to other parts? [00:24:24] And it's a system nor epinephrin a serotonin dopamine. And what happens for a variety of reasons is the some misfire or, uh, they don't work their way through the line as it should. And certain cells take too many and the pleat, the rest of the system and all kinds of crazy things can happen here. Now listen carefully to me. [00:24:48] Um, when these things happen, your brain is misfiring and it's sending wrong messages. Now I am not in a hurry to send you to go to big pharma, to go get this fixed. Don't hear me. But I do think we do an injustice to people. When we say, why don't you just pray more? Why don't you just believe in God more? [00:25:13] Why don't you just buck up little camper? Come on. It's. When all my are firing and theirs are not. And so don't be quick, but I want to say this. If, if this is in you and it's been for a long time and you have never been to a doctor to go get this checked out, I, I just want to give you freedom and permission again, not don't race there. [00:25:38] Nope. Blame all your problems on your chemical misfiring. But if you were struggling with diabetes, I would never lay a guilt trip on you about using insulin. What are you doing? You person of no faith. How could you, if you just believed in God more, when Denver do that to you, and if something's a chemical deal, then we just got to call it out and I would encourage you to get that checked out now again, don't race to the door. [00:26:12] But, um, possibly that could be what's going on now. The second one I want to talk about, and this gets a little more personal is persistent depressive disorder. This is when I don't know how to say this, but I can't blame any chemical. This is about decisions I've made in my life decisions I'm making in my life since I'm accommodating in my. [00:26:39] And it's taken its toll on me. I can't blame anyone for these. These are, these are the things I've chosen. These are the things I've done is how I've handled certain things. Um, it persists, you can't shake it and you go, I don't know, what's causing it sometimes. It's sin in your life. It just, is it just sometimes it's not like. [00:27:07] Like a sinister sin. It's just, you, you, you, you hit that point and when you could have turned left, you chose to turn right or left right. And left. It's the things that we do to ourselves that put ourselves in a frame of mind that eventually catches up with us. Like for instance, a couple of weeks ago, I was telling you this, look, you, you have a right to be a victim. [00:27:31] I don't care what you, what you've gone through. Everyone. Traumatized by. So you have a right to be a victim. I said, don't play the victim card. And I use my own life. As an example, don't play the victim card. If you play the victim card, you get to be the victim, but then you gave up all your power. And if you're going to be the victim, then you can feel sorry for yourself, the rest of your life, for all the things that went wrong. [00:27:52] Cause you were so powerless and nothing you could've done. Could've changed the course of your life. These are the, these are these moments. We could have turned toward God, we didn't, you become a victim. I guarantee what's going to happen. You could begin to feel sorry for yourself. Poor you of all the people pour you. [00:28:16] Where do you think that's going to lead you in the long run? And so we get on a pathway that takes us to a destination. We go, I didn't, I didn't want to end up being depressed, but gosh, that's for sure how I ended up. The biblical counseling center of Chicago suggests four stages that we can walk ourselves down. [00:28:39] And literally we're going down these four steps. Let me show them to you. Okay. Stage or step number one is disappointment or discouragement, disappointment or discouragement is what can start us on the journey downward. I didn't get the job. I didn't get the promotion. I didn't get the, I didn't get the girl. [00:29:00] The marriage didn't work out. My kids didn't turn out, you know, whatever. It's just discouragement. It's something that it just didn't work out and I'm disappointed. And at that point, if you don't trust God and you don't turn it to God and to give people that don't walk with God, aren't going to turn it over to God. [00:29:20] But those of us who do could go, God, I'm so disappointed, but I'm going to trust you. And I'm going to put my confidence in my hope. And I'm going to believe that you're going to cause all things to work together for the good, for those who love you. And even though I don't get it and this isn't what I'd will, I'm disappointed, but I believe what, if you don't go there, you're going to go to the next step and the next step stage two, or step two is this Discontentment this contentment is when you look at your S your current circumstances and you're, so you're, you're, you're so miserable because you deserve better and you're not getting it. [00:29:57] And here again, you start to take shots at God. God, I expected more out of you. I thought you were going to keep this from high. I thought you guaranteed me a happy marriage. I thought I thought I thought and all of a sudden, so now you're taking, you're taking on God and that's going to lead to the third stage, which is despair. [00:30:17] And I'm going to say this. When you feel despair, look at me, you will seek comfort somewhere. I think God wants us to feel discomfort so that we will seek him and our discomfort, but that's often what we don't do. We seek comfort through, uh, relationships or substances or food or sex or entertainment, none of which will fill the gap. [00:30:46] None of which will satisfy. And there's going to drop you in deeper despair, which takes you to the fourth stage and that's desperation and destructive. And what, what do you mean? Um, it's when we start making really, really bad choices, and this is where it gets really dark here, folks, there's four avenues of escape that they've identified people choose for versus, uh, some sort of a relationship. [00:31:14] I'm an escape in a relationship. So you're going to have that adulterous relationship or you're going to, you're going to divorce. People who have affairs and people who divorce say things like, Hey man, I just wanted to fill a live again. I felt like I'd died and all of a sudden in my life. Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:33] Just destroyed something in the process. The second, um, is just escaping into substance. As Perry talked about this last week, a pill, a bottle sugar food. Just something and something that alter the mood that I'm in, just alter the mood, which obviously becomes its own problem in addiction. Third is escaping into isolation, which is just, I just I'm dropping out, man. [00:32:07] I'm dropping out and jumping out at church, dropping out of my life group. I'm dropping out my friends, dropping out, put yourself in solitary confinement and tragically. The fourth escape. Get around it is escape to suicide. [00:32:26] I don't think you're unaware that suicide is skyrocketing right now. And my guess is it's probably had closer to home. Did you ever thought it would? Most of us go, I just can't believe it's so hurt. I'm so hurt that. Um, Suicide. I think it's the absolute last place. God wanted you to land. It's just not where he wanted you to go suicide. [00:33:02] Unfortunately seems like a good idea. And so people opt for it to den the pain. The best thing I've ever heard about suicide that has been helpful to me is suicide is a permanent solution. To a temporary problem. It's a permanent solution and people go, I just can't live here anymore. And I've got to do something. [00:33:32] I don't have time to talk a lot about suicide. I just want to say a couple of things. There is so much help available. If you're at that place, please, please, please seek help. Don't be afraid. Don't do this on your own, on our church podcast, beyond the lines. Um, a couple of weeks ago, there was an interview with a guy named mark fouled. [00:33:57] I was on suicide. It is so good. It's so good. If you're what's, uh, we refer to a suicide ideation. You're having thoughts of suicide, and it's also really good if you know, somebody who's having thoughts of suicide and I would encourage. Alyssa now again, they're going to give you resources there, but there are so many resources. [00:34:19] Please, please, please let us help you. Now. I'm going to finish this message right now, cause we're all uplifted. I'm going to finish this message with a big idea and I want you to listen very carefully because I think if you get this, you get what I've been trying to say to you for the last X number of minutes. [00:34:40] All right, here it is. You don't get over. Depression as much as you get through it, it's going to come into your life. It's gonna it's it's going to be there some form of depression. It's just some of you today are going. Yeah, you don't get over it, but you can get through it. So through the valley means I don't live in the valley. [00:35:09] I'm passing through, you will pass through the valley of death. That is what Psalm 23 talks about, but you don't have to stay there. There's a way out. Jesus said it this way in John 1633, I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace in this world. You will have trouble not. You might, you could, it possibly you will have trouble, but take heart. [00:35:38] I have overcome. [00:35:44] So 10 years ago, a business friend of mine who, uh, I love like a brother he's been in the church for 30, some years, probably 40 years. Maybe he was in real estate. And, uh, the subprime thing just, uh, hurt him really badly. And just go back to 2008 to 10 and you remember all that and it sent him into a terrible. [00:36:10] And if he were standing right here, he would tell you that's exactly what happened in 2015. Um, I asked him if he would be willing to talk to the church about the struggle with depression, he's faced as a result of that. And he did, but we did it via video so that we could show it everywhere. And it was so good. [00:36:32] It was so powerful. He just put it in such eloquent words. And so when we were on this, I talked to him again. I said, Hey, w w what about reprising? That, would you do that again? And you know what? He said, it looks so different to me now. I can't, I couldn't capture it now. Like I felt it done, which is a really key insight. [00:36:58] So we came up with the idea. Brian. What if we showed a little bit of what you said in 2015 and you comment on from today's point of view and that's what we've captured. The first scene you'll see is him today. Then you'll see, I'm looking at an iPad. That was what he said in 2015. Listen to. Uh, we were prepared for a really bad storm, but what hit was a tsunami and it went way longer than any of us were anticipating for each of those next five years. [00:37:35] I woke up recognizing that my life was substantially worse than it had been the year before. And I spent that time just trying to find a solution and there wasn't a solution and I'm cried myself awake many, many mornings that was such a tremendously dark chapter to go through. And, you know, I just felt I was being hit with wave after wave of bad news. [00:38:06] And eventually that took me to a depression. I fell into depression. It's like, you're putting a lens over your eyes and everything. You see, every aspect of your life is darkened and brought down and things that, that used to bring you joy and lift you up. Aren't lifting you anymore. And when you're outside of that, looking at it, you know, it doesn't add up the reasons somebody who's depressed gets. [00:38:30] For feeling the way they feel doesn't make sense. It's not rational, but when you're in that place, that's what you're experiencing this overwhelming sense of sense of despair. Because in those moments, I didn't feel like I had any hope. I didn't feel I had a reason to get out of bed in the morning [00:38:53] and it was difficult just to engage and to continue on. And so the question you ask is. What do you do when you don't have any hope when you're out and every bit of optimism you've got has been spent, and I have learned what you do. You can borrow hope from other people that loves you. That is such a critical truth. [00:39:28] And I would simply not have gotten through this experience. Without the faith and hope other people have. For me. And I think many think that if you're living out your faith and you're doing all the things that we're supposed to do, that somehow that's going to immunize you from the possibility of every experiencing feelings like this. [00:39:50] I don't think that's true. There's a verse in Corinthians that I read now very differently than I read it before this expanse. And the apostle Paul is talking about his, his travels to Asia. And he says to the Corinthians, I want you to be aware brothers that while in Asia, we experienced hardships far beyond what we were able to endure so much so that we despaired of life itself. [00:40:15] And when I read those words, after this experience, they jumped out at me. What does it mean to despair of life itself? I know exactly what the apostle Paul was saying. This can happen to a person, a thing. And if it's happening to you, if you're experiencing this, there's a, there's a lie that Satan wants you to believe. [00:40:39] And that is that these terrible feelings, this darkness you're experiencing is going to be the way you feel forever. A friend of mine said something to me that I remember, he, he, he said, what should you do when you're going through hell. You should keep going. There is no quick fix. It's a marathon, not a sprint, but I plumbed those words and that's what I did. [00:41:05] And I got through my name is Brian Matlock and this is my story. [00:41:12] Yeah. Wow. So what do you do when you're going through? Hell, you just keep going. You were not meant to live in the valley. You can get through the valley and. You're not going to get over, but you can get through and God wants to walk with you. And I want to say to you where again, wherever you are, uh, we want to walk with you. [00:41:35] If you need us, we'll be there and you will get through this. So I'm going to first thank you for processing this difficult message. Thanks for doing that. And then I want to pray and then I want to introduce somebody to you. So that's perfect. So God, uh, In this moment right now, we just, uh, kinda stop. And, uh, we just need a process. [00:42:02] We need to think again, all of us face times where we're down, call it a funk, call it blue, call it, whatever. Uh, but we'll bounce back. It'll come back. But sometimes if we're just honest, we go, it's just not bouncing anymore. It's just. It's so easy to, uh, live on the surface and it's so easy to mask up for protection and isolate, and God only, it's only going to get worse when we do so, but I just pray that, um, you, uh, help us to realize that there is hope and it's in you. [00:42:45] And, uh, again, however we got here that, uh, We don't have to stay here. I am so grateful that Brian stayed with it, through it all, and, uh, love that brother dearly and it takes courage and it takes again, eyes on you. But Lord, I pray that anyone who's struggling right now, eyes on you. And I pray this in Jesus name. [00:43:09] Amen.