Okay. The groundwork has been laid. We’re ready to start thinking about leaving the shadows behind, by God’s grace, forever. Let’s get started with Chapter 12 of Dr. O’Shields’s Slaying the Giant, Prerequisites for Overcoming Depression.
In my struggle, God led me over a period of time to recognize nine prerequisites to overcoming depression. These nine principles are either truths to be accepted or actions to be taken.
I discovered complying with these principles will not free you from depression, but is essential and necessary to being in a position to become free. […]
1. Have a Complete Physical Examination. One of the first things any person experiencing prolonged major depression should do is have a complete physical examination. This is to seek to determine whether you are suffering from organic or psychological depression, or both.
Organic depression is physiological depression. Or rather, when your brain chemistry is messed up and you need medical assistance to fix it. As I said in my last post, there is nothing wrong with getting help if you need help. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say it is wrong to not get help when you need help. I have done the anti-depressant route once in my life, many years ago. If I hadn’t turned a corner a few months ago, I was probably headed that direction again.
2. Establish a Saving Relationship with Jesus Christ You do not have to be a Christian to be depressed, and I am surely not proposing you have to be a Christian to get better from your depression. But in my opinion, a person does need to be a Christian to experience lasting liberation from depression….
I am fairly confident that the vast majority of my readers are Christians. But if you are not and want to know more about the Christian faith, please feel free to use the “Contact Me” link on the blestwithsons sidebar.
3. Possess a Firm Belief in the Sovereignty of God. […] To deny there is a God, or to believe that He created everything then withdrew to let the world and all in it flap for themselves, leaves you with only one conclusion. That is to see yourself as a victim in a wild random world over which you nor anyone else has any control. Despondency and depression are the logical consequences of such beliefs.
But to firmly believe that God created all things, and continues to sovereignly govern and control all things according to His plan and purpose (which is based on His infinite and unchangeable love for those committe by faith to Him), enables you to react positively to life’s events regardless of how bad they appear to be.
I’m going to go with a really trivial example…cause it’s my blog and I want to! 
I move every three years. I leave a church family every three years. In all of my moves, NO ONE has ever had a going away party for me and/or my family. And it’s not that we were in churches that didn’t do going away parties. I attended some for friends. But there’s never been one for me. Now of course, I’ve stuck out my lower lip at that on occasion. But what hit me this last move was that If God wanted me to have a going away party, I’d have one. He could certainly make it happen. He could have planted that idea in the mind of one of my buddies. He didn’t. For whatever reason, it was not in God’s plan for me for that to happen. I really did find that comforting. God knew I didn’t need the party, so I didn’t. A piddly little example, I know. But if we really believe that God is in control…if we really believe He has plans for our good, and knows us inside out, then we have to believe that everything that comes to us comes through His hands. Either it’s something He lets us have, or doesn’t let us have, or allows to happen to us… We won’t always know why. But we know that we have what God wants us to have, not more and not less. Knowing that God is ultimately the author of our life-stories denies us the victim’s viewpoint.
4. Align Yourself With God’s Will. Sin that is not confessed, repented of, and forgiven can and does cause depression. Therefore, if you have not dealt with past sin, or persist in doing that which is known sin, you are not in a position to overcome your depression.
Leading up to that email I sent my e-friend, I had been struggling with my own pet sin. I say struggling, but honestly I wasn’t struggling all that hard. I knew what I was doing was wrong…but I kinda liked it and I kinda didn’t want to give it up. I would pray to God, and confess, and ask His forgiveness and I meant it when I said it… But five minutes later I was misbehaving again. I told myself I couldn’t help it. But there were things I could have done to make helping it a lot easier and I didn’t do them because I didn’t really want to quit. Sin is pleasurable for a season, dontcha know. But the season is short. My sin made me hide from God. I quickly quit talking to Him at all. I was grouchy and restless and weepy and…depressed. I wrote that email to my friend on one of the later days of that phase. If you are a child of God, He will not let you live happily in sin. And PRAISE HIM for that! Get it out into the light and let Him deal with it. (1 John 1:9, praise God!)
Whew! So that’s the first four prerequisites. There are five more to go, and I’m going to tell you upfront that they are not easy. But they are, as best as I can tell, truth. Check yourself against the four we’ve already covered, and be in prayer about the steps to come.
Great points!
Comment by Blair — October 5, 2006 @ 6:30 am
Okay — 2 and 3 I have working on 4 — and waiting for insurance to kick in (Nov 1st YEAH!!!) for number 1. —
Thanks for taking the time to do this Blest!! I really do appreciate it!
Comment by Maria — October 11, 2006 @ 6:47 pm