The Discipline of Dejection

I have been on a journey with Oswald today. I read the assigned entry from My Utmost right after my shower this morning. I knew I was in trouble from the second sentence: "Anything that savours of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If depression and oppression visit me, I am to blame; God is not, nor is anyone else. Dejection springs from one of two sources -- I have either satisfied a lust or I have not."

My first thoughts were of protest: What about brain chemistry -- misfiring synapses and sluggish receptors? What about temperament and hereditary factors? What about nurture and modeling and the sins of the fathers being visited on the second and third generations? . . . But I ran out of steam pretty quickly. Who really wants to argue for the right to be depressed? Still, I found Oswald's words both harsh and over-simplistic: "Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it."

The thing is, I have struggled with depression for most of my adult life and, for many years, risen to a functioning level only through the aid of anti-depressant medication. I'm not prepared to beat myself up for those years, nor do I desire to criticize -- or minimize the pain of -- anyone in the same position. That said, I feel like Oswald has earned the right to be heard, so I took his words with me throughout the day. I examined both his expression and my response.

• "I am to blame." Those words don't seem quite so devastating to me as they would have a few weeks ago. I am not obliterated by the suggestion that I am responsible. Oswald's teaching that we should not be overly concerned about our own righteousness has begun to bring about a change in me -- a loosening of bonds. This morning we sang the hymn, "Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy." Note the words of this final stanza: "Let not conscience make you linger, not of fitness fondly dream; all the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him." I feel a need of him. I know the despair that crouches hungrily at my door.
• I also remembered these words from McCasland's biography on Oswald. Biddy, Oswald's wife had just expressed concern about a dying friend, and Oswald replied: "I don't care what God does. It's what God is that I care about." Now, note what the author wrote about Biddy: "Biddy smiled. She knew the heart of love and concern from which her husband had spoken what might seem a callous remark. He cared deeply what happened to Miss Ballinger, but he knew that God's actions could be very confusing, while the Lord himself never was." Oswald on the written page can come across more harshly than perhaps was his intent. Each reading requires a larger context of understanding.
  
• At 18, Oswald wrote a poem that suggests his own struggle with dejection, and we are sometimes harshest in our criticism of our personal failings.
  

LONDON

Sad heart, why art thou weary
With anxious strivings drear?
Thou hast no cause for sadness,
No cause for restless fear.

Thou longest for Thy Master,
Then cease and be at rest;
For shall not He who made thee
Know what for thee is best?

• Today's verse comes from the Road to Emmaus passage -- three days after the crucifixion. While Jesus scolds the two men for their failure to understand the prophets, he also walks with them, eats with them, and explains "all the Scriptures concerning himself." The two men want him to linger: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?" Yes, they missed the point, but Jesus communes with them. He stays with them until their eyes are open. There is no condemnation here.
• Finally, the truth of Oswald's closing sentence resonates with my heart: "One of the most amazing revelations of God comes when we learn that it is in the commonplace things that the Deity of Jesus Christ is realized." On the road to Emmaus. In the breaking of bread.

I believe God is showing me that much of my depression has been rooted in an over-concentration on my own righteousness. Dale Bruner was the speaker at the retreat I attended this weekend. I shared a piece of my journey with him and his wife, Kathy, and I'll close with two nuggets of wisdom they gave me. Dale's came from Martin Luther. I paraphrase: Sanctification is simply taking justification seriously. Cathy's related to the rhythm of breathing: We breathe in grace. We breathe out confession of sin. We breathe in grace.