One of the
lowest feelings a human being can experience is rejection. It can plunge the
human spirit into the depths of depression and hopelessness. This is what the
Apostle was dealing with while writing his last letter from a Roman prison. He
wrote, “You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me,
including Phygelus and Hermogenes” (2 Tim 1:15). Clearly not everyone had
deserted Paul, but it felt like they had. Depression exaggerates the
hopelessness of a situation.
Paul was
most likely experiencing some depression when he wrote these words. There is a
variety of opinions as to the sources of depression. Some think it is caused by
abnormalities of the chemicals in the brain or the endocrine system. Some point to the
presence of strong negative emotions such as anger, resentment, guilt or
frustration. Still others underscore the social origin of depression that comes
from losses experienced in childhood or through faulty relationships in the
family of origin. Some Christians say it is caused from the spirit of
depression and simply must be rebuked. On one thing we can all agree, and that
is that depression is real and it is very complex.
Richard
Winter writes:
Most reasonably
mature and stable people have a deep inner sense of their significance, worth
and value. They are neither over-inflated with pride nor so self-demeaning that
they feel that they are hopeless failures. The most important fact that emerges
from the many psychological and sociological studies of depression is that
anything which undermines a person’s awareness of their significance and
security will tend to reduce their sense of self-esteem and thus make them
prone to depression. Conversely, anything which raises a person’s awareness of
significance and security will tend to increase their sense of self-esteem and
make them less prone to depression.[i]
From my own
experience of working with people, I have observed the loss of a parent through
death or divorce can make a person vulnerable to depression later in life.
Aaron Beck, a pioneer in the study of depression, believed that depression
arises from negative ideas a child develops very early about himself or
herself. Then later in life, these erroneous ideas have explosive power to set
off a person on the course to depression.
This is one
of the reasons why helping young parents is important. Good parenting from a
Biblical model helps a child see themselves in the image of God. They learn
that they are loved by their parents and by God and thus develop a good healthy
self-esteem that will protect them from these dangerous attacks against their self-confidence
later in life.
From this
passage there are two things that helped Paul in his depression. One thing Paul
did for himself and the other Onesiphorus did for Paul. The first thing was
that Paul disciplined himself to think biblically and trust in God for his
future, thus not allowing himself to plummet into despair and self-pity. The
other thing was done for Paul by a caring person. Paul says of Onesiphorus, “May
the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed
me and was not ashamed of my chains. On
the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May
the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very
well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus” (2 Tim 1:15-18).
Onesiphorus
searched hard for Paul and never gave up until he found him, and he ministered
to him physically, emotionally and spiritually. Onesiphorus showed mercy to
Paul. That is one of the best things we can do for someone who is experiencing
depression. Telling them to stop being depressed doesn’t work, but showing
mercy refreshes and lifts a person out of their sense of loss.
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