Faith Shame Episode 4: When Faith Shame Meets Depression

Can a Christian experience depression and still have genuine faith?

It's a question many believers never ask out loud.

For some, depression isn't just an emotional struggle. It becomes a spiritual one. Prayer feels different. Reading the Bible becomes difficult. Worship no longer comes as easily. Before long, Faith Shame begins whispering that something must be wrong with our relationship with God.

In today's study, we turn to the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, where one of God's greatest prophets moves from the victory of Mount Carmel to sitting beneath a broom tree asking God to take his life.

Together, we explore:

• Why emotional struggle is not the same as spiritual failure. 
• What Elijah's story teaches us about depression, emotional exhaustion and God's compassion. 
• Why God responds with food, water and rest before speaking to Elijah's future. 
•  How Faith Shame can cause us to judge ourselves more harshly than God ever does. 

We also reflect on a personal testimony of grief and loss, and consider how pain can slowly become a verdict about our faith rather than simply a season we're walking through.

If you've ever questioned your faith because you're not coping as well as you think you should, this episode is for you.

Remember, your lowest moment is not God's final verdict over your life.

Thank you for joining me in the Word & Prayer Room. If this study has encouraged you, please follow the podcast and share it with someone who may be seeking God's direction. Remember, God is not distant or silent. He is able to make His will known to those who sincerely seek Him. Until next time, keep listening for His voice, keep trusting His word, and keep walking by faith. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome back to the Word and Prayer Room podcast. If you're joining us for the first time, this series is about faith shame. Faith shame is what happens when we begin attaching spiritual meaning to our struggles, disappointments, or experiences in ways that affect how we see ourselves, our faith, and our relationship with God. In our last episode, we explored the story of the woman caught in adultery in St. John chapter 8. We had an honest conversation about the shame that can surround sexual sin, particularly the hidden struggles of lust and pornography, and how faith shame can convince individuals that those private battles have somehow disqualified them from God's grace. We saw how Jesus never ignored what the woman had done, but he never allowed it to become the final word on who she was. In today's study, we're moving into an area that affects far more people than we probably realize. Yet it's still one of the hardest things for many believers to talk about openly. Today's teaching is called When Faith Shame Meets Depression. When faith shame meets depression. For many believers, it still carries a real sense of taboo and stigma. It's often surrounded by silence, misunderstanding, and shame, which is exactly where faith shame can begin to take hold. Before we go any further, I just want to acknowledge that today's topic may be difficult for some people. If, as you listen, you find yourself feeling affected or overwhelmed by anything we discuss, please don't carry that on your own. Stay with me until the end, because I'll share some places you can turn to for support. Remember, you're not alone. It's interesting that in many of our church spaces, depression isn't always spoken about as an illness or as a season of emotional and mental struggle. Instead, it's sometimes treated as though it's evidence that something is wrong with our faith. We hear so much about victory, joy, and overcoming that it's easy to believe that if we're still struggling, something must be wrong with us. Instead of bringing our pain to God, we begin questioning our faith. For many Christians, depression doesn't just affect the mind. Prayer becomes harder, worship doesn't come as easily as it once did. Reading the Bible can feel like a struggle. Some days you still believe God is there, but you don't feel his presence in the way you once did. Then the faith shame in a voice whispers, a real Christian wouldn't feel like this. This is one of the cruelest parts of depression for many believers. The darkness itself is painful enough, but then comes the shame of believing that the darkness must mean something is wrong with our faith. As I prepared this teaching, I was reminded of how common this problem is. Here in the UK, around one in four people experience a mental health problem each year. Research among regular churchgoers suggests this figure may be even higher. Yet many churches still rarely talk about mental health, and many church leaders have received little or no training in how to respond. This tells me there are probably many believers listening today who know exactly what I'm talking about. It's simply a topic that we haven't become very good at addressing. Today, I want us to look at the life of a man in Scripture whose story reminds us that even the strongest believers can reach the end of themselves. This is a prophet who has just experienced one of the greatest spiritual victories recorded in the Bible. Yet only days later found himself sitting beneath a tree asking God to let him die. His name was Elijah. So before we read today's passage, let's take a look at what's happening in Elijah's life. We're going to be reading from 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 1 to 8, and I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. In the chapter immediately before this one, as in 1 Kings chapter 18, we see Elijah standing alone on Mount Carmel against 450 prophets of Baal. In front of the whole nation of Israel, he prays, and God answers by sending fire from heaven. It is one of the greatest demonstrations of God's power recorded anyway in Scripture. Now this is not a man drifting on the edges of his faith, right? If anything, Elijah is one of the strongest believers in the whole of the Old Testament. He has just witnessed one of the greatest demonstrations of God's power, which makes what happens next all the more remarkable. Queen Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab and a fierce supporter of the prophets of Baal, sends word that she intends to have Elijah killed within 24 hours. Elijah becomes afraid and runs for his life. He travels a day's journey into the wilderness, sits down beneath a broom tree, and prays that he might die. What we're about to read is one of the clearest examples in Scripture of a believer reaching the depths of despair. I think it's easy to ask how someone could move from Mount Carmel to a broom tree so quickly. Perhaps the better question is, what does God do when one of his faithful servants reaches the end of themselves? Let's read together from 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 1 to 8, New Living Translation. When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal. So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah. Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. Then he went on alone into the wilderness, travelling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. I have had enough, Lord, he said. Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died. Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, Get up and eat. He looked around, and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you. So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. One of the greatest things that strikes me most about Elijah's story is the timing of it all. Notice that this doesn't happen before Mount Carmel, it happened afterwards. Elijah had just experienced one of the greatest victories of his life. He had seen God answer by fire, watched the prophets of Baal defeated, and witness God's power in a remarkable way. If anyone had reason to feel spiritually strong, surely it was Elijah. Yet only a short time later we find him sitting beneath a broom tree asking God to take his life. I think many of us have been taught to expect the opposite. We expect people to struggle after failure, after sin, or after walking away from God. But Elijah's story reminds us that life's deepest struggles don't always follow our lowest moments. Sometimes they come after our greatest victories. Perhaps that's because we underestimate the emotional, physical, and spiritual cost of continually pouring ourselves out. There comes a point when the adrenaline wears off, the pressures catch up with us, and the body and mind simply reach their limit. I also wonder whether we've misunderstood what faith looks like. Because God never changes, we can begin expecting ourselves to be the very same every day. We think we should always feel spiritually strong. We think our joy should never fade, our confidence should never be shaken, and our faith should always feel the same. Then when we find ourselves emotionally exhausted or mentally drained, we begin asking whether something must be wrong with our faith. I don't believe these two are always the same. Depression doesn't wait until our faith becomes weak before it appears. Sometimes it comes when from the outside everything looks as though it's going well. That's one of the reasons I wanted to look at Elijah's story. It challenges the idea that emotional struggle must always be evidence of spiritual failure. Listen again to Elijah's words. I am no better than my ancestors. These aren't the words of a man who has stopped loving God. They're the words of someone who has reached the end of himself. I wonder how many believers have recognized something of themselves in those words. Not because they wanted to die, but because they reached a place where they simply felt exhausted, overwhelmed, or unable to see a way forward. Maybe it's time to challenge some of the assumptions we've come to accept. Have we come to expect things of believers that God Himself never expected of them? Have we somehow believed that genuine faith means we should always be emotionally strong, spiritually confident and full of joy? Yet when I read Scripture, I don't see that picture. I see faithful men and women who experienced grief, fear, despair, disappointment, and exhaustion. Their humanity wasn't evidence that God had abandoned them, nor was it evidence that their faith had failed. Perhaps the greatest danger isn't the depression itself. It's the conclusion we reach because of it. Many of you know that I lost my mum last year. What you may not know is just how deeply that season affected me. I wasn't simply grieving the loss of my mother. I was struggling to come to terms with the way she died. Watching her suffer before she passed away was something I found incredibly difficult to reconcile, and I couldn't seem to make sense of it. For the first time in my life, I found myself asking God questions that if I'm honest, I'd always believed Christians weren't supposed to ask. Questions like, Lord, why did you allow my mother to die like that? She was your child, a believer. I think I could have accepted her death more easily if she hadn't suffered so much. These questions unsettled me because they didn't sound like the kind of questions I thought a woman of faith should be asking. I remember listening to a discussion on the news about euthanasia. Theologically, I have always believed that life belongs to God. He is the one who gives life and the one who determines when our lives come to an end. I still believe that, by the way, today. But after watching my mom suffer, I found myself understanding why some people desperately want that choice. That thought shocked me. It wasn't because my beliefs had changed, it was because my pain had taken me to a place I had never been to before. As time went on, I noticed something else happening. Prayer didn't come as naturally as it once had. Reading the Word of God felt different. Even things that had sustained me spiritually for years seemed so much further away than they had felt before. Looking back now, I don't believe my greatest struggle was the grief itself. My greatest struggle was what I believed about my faith because I was grieving. I expected myself to cope better. I expected to recover more quickly. I expected to keep praying, keep reading my Bible, and keep serving God as though nothing had changed. And when I couldn't, I didn't question the grief. I questioned my faith. I compared myself with other Christians who had experienced loss and seemed to keep going. I wondered why they appeared stronger than I was. I started measuring my faith by how well I thought I should have been coping. And because I wasn't coping the way I expected, I began to believe there must be something wrong with me spiritually. I can see now something I couldn't see then. God wasn't measuring my faith by how well I was coping. I think that's what faith shame does. It takes a very human experience and convinces us it must be saying something about our relationship with God. Instead of giving ourselves permission to grieve, to hurt, or to acknowledge that we're overwhelmed, we become our own judge. We reach conclusions about ourselves that God never reaches. That's why this subject matters so much to me. I know what it feels like to love God with all your heart and still find yourself in a place where your emotions seem to tell a completely different story. On reflection, I realized that my faith wasn't failing. I was grieving. And perhaps that's exactly what Elijah helps us to see. God never accused him of having weak faith. He never questioned his calling or asked him to justify how he was feeling. God saw beyond Elijah's despair and recognized what Elijah himself couldn't see. He wasn't looking at a prophet whose faith had failed. He was looking at a faithful servant who had reached the end of his own strength. I think that's an important distinction because we don't always extend that same level of grace to ourselves. We can be far harsher in our own assessment than God ever is. We look at our low mood, our emotional exhaustion, or our depression and believe that we must be failing spiritually. Yet when I read Elijah's story, I don't see God reaching that conclusion at all. In fact, God isn't measuring my faith by how well I'm coping. So why am I? One of the things that stands out to me in this passage is God's response to Elijah. Notice that God doesn't rebuke him or judge him for feeling the way he does. He doesn't question his faith or remind him of the victory on Mount Carmel. He doesn't tell him to pray harder, quote more scripture, or simply to trust him more. Instead, he sends an angel with food and water and allows Elijah to sleep. I think this is so important to note because it challenges some of the assumptions we've come to accept. You know, if emotional struggle automatically meant weak faith, we'd have to rewrite large parts of the Bible. God responds to Elijah's need before he speaks to Elijah's future. I think we need to really stop here and take a moment to think about this. Because this is not always how we, as in the church, respond. Sometimes we're so eager to offer a spiritual explanation that we overlook what the person actually needs. We can become more interested in correcting than caring. Yet God's response to Elijah shows us something very different. He recognizes that Elijah has reached his limit. Before there is any conversation, there is food, water, and rest. I don't think that's an insignificant detail. I think it tells us something about the heart of God. It also raises another question for us. Have we become more demanding of ourselves than God is? When our emotions are low or our minds are exhausted, do we become our own harshest critic? When life takes an unexpected turn, do we judge ourselves for not praying enough, believing enough, or coping well enough? Have we been accusing ourselves of things that God never has? Today, through his word, I believe God wants to confront those accusations. Elijah's lowest moment did not change God's assessment of him. And perhaps your lowest moment hasn't changed God's assessment of you either. The prophet on Mount Carmel is still the prophet under the broom tree. Elijah's circumstances changed, but God's view of him didn't. He still saw the prophet he had called, even when Elijah could no longer see that for himself. So as we close, I want to remind us that our lowest moments may affect the way we see ourselves, but they don't change the way God sees us. His grace isn't withdrawn because we're exhausted. His calling over your life and my life isn't cancelled because we're overwhelmed. His love doesn't become conditional because we've reached the end of our own strength. Perhaps that's the lesson Elijah needed to learn, and perhaps it's one we need to learn too. God's assessment of our life is not determined by our lowest moment. If it were, none of us would have much hope. So before we finish, I want to say something to anyone listening who may be experiencing persistent low mood, depression, or thoughts of hopelessness. Please don't struggle on your own. Reaching out for help isn't a sign that you're weak or that your faith has failed. Sometimes it's one of the bravest steps you can take. Reach out to someone you trust. That might be a family member, a close friend, a mature Christian, your pastor. Some churches have pastoral care or even a church leader. I would also encourage you to seek appropriate support from your doctor or another healthcare professional. If you're in the UK, organizations such as Mind offer excellent information and support. As we've seen throughout Elijah's story, God didn't abandon him beneath that broom tree. He met him there. And my prayer is that whatever you're facing today, you'll know that God meets us in our darkest moments too. So before we pray, let's take a few moments to bring ourselves before the Lord using our see reflection model. Ask the Holy Spirit to help us see whether we've been measuring our faith by how well we've been coping with life. Ask the Holy Spirit to examine any lies that we've believed about ourselves because of grief, emotional exhaustion, or even depression. Remember the words of Psalm 139 that says, Even if I make my bed in hell, you are there. So ask the Holy Spirit to help us to exchange any lies for the truth of God's word and ask him for what he wants us to believe about ourselves instead. Just take a few moments before we pray. Thank you that our lowest moments do not change who you are or how you see us. Lord, for everyone listening today who is struggling with low mood, grief, emotional exhaustion, or depression, I pray that they will know your presence, your peace, and your love. Where faith shame has caused them to question themselves, remind them of what is true. Help them to measure their lives by your word rather than by their emotions. Father, thank you that you met Elijah beneath the broom tree with compassion, not condemnation. Teach us to receive that same grace for ourselves. Give us the courage to ask for help when we need it, the wisdom to care for our well-being, and the confidence to trust that you have not abandoned us. Above all, remind us that our lowest moment is not your final verdict over our lives. Father, we thank you that you hear us when we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. So, as you know, I always like to finish a study with an application, which is at least one thing that we can do to put our learning into practice. So, why not take one practical step towards your well-being this week? If you're tired, make some time to rest. If you've been neglecting your health, do something positive about it. There's lots of great resources that you can find out online. If you've been struggling emotionally for a while, why not speak to someone you trust or seek the appropriate support? Remember, God didn't condemn Elijah for reaching his limit. He met him there. Rest isn't the opposite of faith. Sometimes it's an expression of wisdom. Well, thank you for joining me today in the Word and Prayer Room. I look forward to seeing you next time as we continue together in our Faith Shame series. God bless.