Christians & Anti-Depressants ~ My Story

I read a very good article by Russell Moore the other day regarding Christians taking anti-depressants.  I believe he gave a very thoughtful, balanced perspective on the issue - not taking the route that drugs are evil & for "weak" Christians, but also not buying into the pervasive belief that drugs are the cure-all for everything that ails us.  I posted the article on FB, which seems to me at least to have either struck a wrong chord or been offensive (or both) to a few.  I believe this is more from not reading the article carefully or - possibly - believing that only those who have undergone "professional training" have a corner on the market & may make statements regarding it.  Or, it could even be that our society is so plagued with diagnoses & syndromes that any questioning of that is not tolerated well.  Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to offer my thoughts on the subject as one who once used anti-depressants.  I don't expect my story to be everyone's story; there are always variations, so don't feel as though I'm heaping judgment upon anyone who has experienced this issue differently from myself.  However, I do think the caution in the article (that I repeat below) should be heeded.  Thanks for letting me share my experience with you.


I agree with Russell Moore when he advises that while antidepressants are necessary for physiological imbalances, situational depression may need a pharmaceutical boost, but the underlying reason for the depression still must be dealt with. In such a case, the drug is a help, but it's not a curative treatment. In taking insulin for Type I diabetes, for instance, you are treating the underlying cause of your illness rather than just the symptoms. As I said above, so are those people who have a physiological issue; but those of us who rely on said drugs to deal with the symptoms while ignoring the root cause are not ultimately helping ourselves. Some have said that when you break your leg, you need a crutch. That's a true statement; but if you break your leg & your only treatment is using crutches - meaning, you don't go to a doctor to set & cast your leg - then your leg will not heal & you will be crippled. Such is the case if you have depression caused by life's circumstances rather than physiological imbalances & your only treatment is a drug rather than dealing with the issue(s) causing the depression. My personal experience is that I was diagnosed with depression in my teens, & so off & on I took an antidepressant for years. I mainly acted out my "depression" with anger, so anytime that I started doing so, I turned to the drug to "fix" me. When my darling husband, Michael, came along, he showed me that my anger was sin (not in a condemning or accusatory way, but in love as a fellow sinner also in need of God's sanctifying grace) & I needed to confront it, not numb it. I got off the antidepressants, & with that realization - which for me has definitely proven true - I fight my sin with God's Word & prayer rather than just covering it up with a drug. Now, in my situation, the underlying cause of my anger was a fourth-grade molestation by an uncle & how some of the family dealt with it (blaming me & sweeping it under the rug). I went to counselors - even "Christian" counselors - for years & was never freed. Michael sent me a Mark Driscoll sermon on expiation & C.J. Mahaney's book Living the Cross-Centered Life, both of which applied the Gospel to my situation & freed me! I learned from Mark that not only did Christ's death cleanse me of my own sin, but also the sins committed against me (sexual abuse victims always feel dirty & at fault). I learned from C.J. that my own sin committed against our perfectly holy God was far worse than any sin someone committed against sin-filled me. Yet, God forgives me & loves me. Who am I to withhold forgiveness from anyone? I can't tell you how clean I suddenly was, how free of the bitterness & hatred! I wasn't healed because of my own prayers or faith (like some new-age Charismatic), but through the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No drug could ever have done that; it would have simply continued to numb me. I've never taken an antidepressant since. That doesn't make me a stronger or better Christian. It just shows the greatness, mercy, & grace of God in the Gospel's healing power.

God Hates & Loves Sinners ~ David Platt

The Power of the Cross ~ Keith & Kristyn Getty

The Gospel Points & Calls

“Even as we slog through the trials, persecutions, irritations, temptations, distractions, apathy, and just plain weariness of this world, the Gospel points us to heaven where our King Jesus — the Lamb of God who was crucified in our place and raised gloriously from the dead — now sits interceding for us. Not only so, but it calls us forward to that final day when heaven will be filled with the roaring noise of millions upon millions of forgiven voices hailing Him as crucified Savior and risen King.”

~Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel?
Of First Importance

Don't Believe in a Small Gospel

“A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small.

A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small.

A gospel that isolates one of the benefits of union with Christ and ignores all the others is too small.

A gospel that must be measured by your own moral conduct, social conscience, or religious experience is too small.

A gospel that rearranges the components of your life but does not put you personally in the presence of God is too small.”

~Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything
Of First Importance

My Angry Day

I hesitate to write this post mainly because it is obvious from our blog that we are Christians, & I don't want to do anything that brings shame on Christ. My hope is that this post will instead show that Christians aren't perfect, but we are forgiven & are constantly undergoing sanctification.

I am angry today. Actually, it started last night. But before I even tell you about last night, let me remind you that my parents are coming tomorrow for my birthday. I'm very excited! But, if you know me at all, you know that I obsess over my house being perfect when anyone comes over. And when something hinders that, my temper flares. Which leads me to last night. My beloved bought a new pair of jeans that needed alteration. Long story extremely short, I sat down to taper (yea, me!) & hem them & got up 2 hours later, completely frustrated. I had more than one little tearful melt-down because for some reason still altogether unknown to me, the bobbin thread was a tangled mess not once, not twice, but 4 times. Meaning that the seam had to be ripped out 4 times! It finally (thankfully!) started working right, but no one would have thought me godly when I was in the midst of this project. To make matters worse, all this sewing made me get into bed 2 hours later than I should have to be fully rested for church this morning. Me minus a full 8 hours' sleep is not a pretty picture. So began another day of frustration.

And how did my day start? Well, with the hot water turning to frigid well before the end of my shower. Cold shower in the middle of the winter is, shall we say, unpleasant. But the rest of the morning went well, & off to church we went. We left church & stopped at Sonic for lunch because the meal that I fixed last night & planned for lunch leftovers was ruined by tough meat. Again, long story very short (I promise, you want that) after sitting in the drive through - as the first car, mind you - for almost 15 minutes, we get home to find the order wrong & the fry cartons half full. Tired & hungry do not a good combination make in this situation! But things always look better after some rest, so I laid down for a nap with my sweet Michael.

I woke up much earlier than I expected because I was sick to my stomach - I know, I know, that's what I get. I decided to get busy meeting the ever-dimming goal of house-perfecting, beginning with the kitchen. Upon opening the dishwasher to unload the dishes, what do I find, but several still dirty dishes! Thanks to this little development, I now have 2 more loads to wash instead of just one. On top of it all, my babies were chewing rawhides when about 15 minutes ago, there was this huge "CRACK!" & I found that Ginger has broken not one, but 2 teeth! Like, seriously?! If I were on the outside looking in, this whole thing would be comical.

Now, I've been a Christian long enough to know that when I'm bombarded with the same sorts of situations or temptations, God's busy getting my attention. In all of these instances, God is sovereignly working to graciously show me my sin of anger. It is an area in which I need loads of work. As I've said before, one verse that really speaks to me is James 1:19-21:

"Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."

I've already proven that I can't do this on my own. I am an angry person by nature. It certainly helps me to recite these verses to myself when I'm tempted to anger, but sometimes it happens so quickly that my faculties leave me, & I forget to turn to God's Word. The beauty of these verses is that they display both man's responsibility & God's work. We work to "be slow to anger" (in this instance) & to "put away all filthiness & rampant wickedness". But God implants His Word in our hearts, & all we're to do is "receive [it] with meekness"!

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules." (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

I am responsible to follow God's commands & kill my own sin. But if I stop there, I become burdened by the knowledge that I can't do so. So, Paul reminds me that it is God who works in me. He gives me both the desire & the ability to obey Him. I can overcome my sin of anger - & every other sin - as long as I'm relying on God.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)

"For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8:13)

And joy of joys, when I do fail - which as a sinner, I'm still going to do - I am freely given forgiveness upon repentance. I rely on Jesus' sacrifice on the cross to cover over my sin. I'm assured that I stand accepted, loved, & clothed in Christ's righteousness before God.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith." (Romans 3:23-25)

"For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

The Very Heart of the Gospel

“The joyful news of the Gospel is that God the Father brings us to share in the loving communion that He forever enjoys with His eternal and natural Son through the work of His eternal and natural Son in our place and in our stead. Through adoption God graciously brings us to participate in the reciprocal love that ever flows between the Father and His Son. Not only is this the very heart of adoption; it is also the very heart of the Gospel.”

~Dan Cruver, Reclaiming Adoption
Of First Importance

From a Ransomed Sinner, With Love

We are all sinners. Every single person on this planet is a sinner. All of us, including you & me, have sinned against God. We have chased after money & possessions, we have harbored anger & unforgiving attitudes, we have had sex outside of marriage, we have not been thankful to Him for His innumerable provisions, we have ignored Him, we've been prideful, & the list goes on. None of us should be self-righteous, because we're all equally guilty of these things - you, me, & everyone else in this world. The difference between true believers & the rest of the world is that we rely on Jesus Christ's righteousness as our own. I know you know the story, but please read it with fresh eyes, as though you didn't, & try to picture it in your head. God has existed from eternity past. He is holy, righteous, & just. He is our Creator. He created the earth in perfection, without sin. But, when Adam & Eve rejected His authority over them, they sinned against Him, & all of creation - including us - have been in bondage to sin ever since. And we can't get out. We are slaves to sin, dead in our sin, completely unable to free ourselves. In order for us to be free, we must have a Redeemer, someone to buy us back from the slave master that is sin. The whole Bible is the story of redemption, of God's plan to save mankind. Not because we are worthy (Scripture shows mankind's repeated rebellion against God, which we carry on today), but because He is merciful. He saves us because our salvation brings Him glory. Glory that is rightfully His, as our holy & just Creator. At just the right time, Jesus Christ became part of His creation in His incarnation. He became human, but He wasn't just any human. He was both fully God & fully man. Fully man to represent us & fully God to be a sinless sacrifice for us. Only God is sinless, & only a man can stand in the place of another man. Therefore, Jesus had to be - & was - both. He lived a perfectly sinless life. No unrighteous anger, no malice, no sexual impurity or immorality - perfectly sinless. He lived in perfect communion with God, day-in & day-out. His every word, thought, & deed was perfectly righteous & one with the Father. That's what makes His death for us so heart-wrenching & so beautiful at the same time. When He cried out in the garden for God to remove the cup from Him if it was His will, He wasn't focused on the beatings & crucifixion He was about to endure. He cried out in agony & sweat drops of blood because, for the first time in all of eternity, His oneness with the Father was about to be severed. God can have no part of sin, He can't even bear to look on it, because of His perfect holiness. Jesus was about to become sin for us. He was about to bear our sin & God's wrath toward that sin on the cross. For the first time in all of eternity, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was going to be utterly alone. Why did this have to be? Why did Jesus have to die? God shows all through the Scriptures that sin requires a sacrifice. Not because He's some sadistic deity, but because He is holy. He is righteous. The opposite of righteousness is evil, & evil must be punished. We all want that, too, don't we? We all want murderers punished. We all want child molesters, rapists, & thieves punished, for things to be set right. The only time we seem to have a problem with it is when we're the guilty ones. Then, we want mercy. But just as any judge who just let a rapist or murderer go with an apology is considered corrupt & unjust, so would be God if He simply let us go when we've sinned against him. Even more so, because while sin against another human is evil, sin against the only One who is perfectly holy & righteous is infinitely more evil. Sin has to be paid for, & the only One who could pay for our sin had to be both God & man. Only Jesus could ransom us from sin & exhaust God's wrath. How do we know that He accomplished this? Because after laying in the grave for 3 days, the Father raised Him from the dead. Some people don't think this is all that significant when you realize that other people were raised from the dead - Lazarus, for instance. The difference is that each of these other people died again. Only Jesus alone was resurrected & still lives. This is how we know that His sacrifice paid for our sins, exhausting God's wrath & justifying us.

My question at this point isn't, "Do you believe this?"; after all, an awful lot of people claim to believe this & they continue in their sin. My question is, "Do you see your sin as repugnant & worthy of damnation? Do you feel sorrow & grief over your sin?" If so, repent! Repentance is not just an apology for sin, it's a deliberate turning away from sin towards righteousness. Repentance also isn't a one-time thing - "I repented of my sin when God saved me, but never since." No, our problem isn't that we sin, it's that we've never done anything but sin. So, repentance is something we do over & over throughout our lives, as God convicts us of our sin. And repentance is His gift to us. Without His Spirit's work in us, we can't feel sorrow over our sin & be led to repentance. Without that understanding, it's easy at this point to begin a works-salvation practice, where I have to white-knuckle it to be good enough. But we can never be good enough. This isn't cause for despair, though, it's cause for celebration, because for the believer, Christ has already won the victory. We can't be good enough, we can't be holy enough, but Christ already is for us! When Christ lived His perfectly sinless life in complete oneness with the Father, it's as though the believer who truly trusts in His sacrifice, lived that life. God the Father sees His Son when He looks on us. His righteousness is credited to us! That's the other side of the coin: we repent & we rely on His righteousness in our stead & His strength to enable us to turn from our sin. I'm coming to realize that this is a life-long process, & I'll never be completely rid of my sin in this life. But a believer's life is characterized by a fighting against sin. We hate the sin in our lives, & we fight against it. Not in our own strength & power, but with the Word of God & with prayer. He helps us to overcome it, & little by little, we reflect Him more & more.

If you feel this sorrow over your sin, don't despair. Yes, our sin is reviling & we can sometimes feel hopeless that we will ever be rid of it. I certainly can feel this way at times. But, if you feel sorrow, you can take heart, because it's an indication that God is working in you, that He loves you & wants to redeem you. And God always accomplishes His will! Sin won't have the victory over a believer. Christ already won that victory, & now we can live from that victory!

I'm writing this letter to you for one reason: if you are not a true believer in Christ as your Lord & Savior, I pray God uses this letter to bring about conviction & sorrow over your sin, as well as hope & freedom in His saving grace. I pray that you come to know Him, love Him, cherish Him, & rejoice in Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, & strength. What joy, freedom, & love is to be found in Him! If you are a true believer, then I pray that you will take this time to evaluate yourself & your life. 2 Corinthians 13:5 says to "examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?---unless indeed you fail to meet the test!" We are all called to hold up our lives next to Scripture & examine to see if our lives reflect God & His Word. In any area that we do, we should praise God for His sanctification in our hearts that reflects itself in our lives. In any area that we don't reflect Him, we must conform our lives to His Word through His power. We conform to Him, we don't expect Him to conform to us. He is the standard. Matthew 7:17 reminds us that "every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down & thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits." And Galatians 5:22-23 says that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." These are the characteristics that we are to aspire to, out of love for God. Remember, no one is ever able to do these things perfectly. You will never look at your life & see perfection. Not this side of heaven. The important thing is to rely on Christ's righteousness & His power to overcome your sinful desires as they rear their ugly heads. And to repent when you fail to overcome them, relying on His forgiveness.

*Our most gracious heavenly Father, thank You for Your salvation.  Without Your sacrifice for us in the death of Your Son, Jesus Christ, we would be under Your wrath for our sin for all eternity.  Thank You for Your mercy, grace, & adoption of us as Your sons.  We love You!  We praise You!  We worship You!  Lord, for anyone reading this who is not Your child, please reveal Yourself to them & save them.  And please remind all those who are truly Yours to always examine ourselves by Your Word, so that we continue in the faith.  In Christ's holy name we pray, Amen.