Grief-and-Depression350-webDepression is real, and if you are fighting it you are not alone. Depression seems to have been the bane of many of life’s great leaders. In the Bible, Moses, Elijah, David, and Job all had to deal with it. In the secular world, Sir Winston Churchill used to call depression his ‘black dog’, and Ernest Hemingway referred to it as ‘the artist’s reward’.

President Abraham Lincoln battled depression and suicide all his adult life. There were times when for his own safety Lincoln would not allow himself to carry a knife, for fear that he would hurt himself, or worse. Read about Lincoln turning to the Bible to relieve his depression. Let the Scriptures help you just like they have helped so many of us. Sometimes depression can be a purely spiritual thing, read this – Depression Is a Spirit – It Must Be Fought with the Word of God.

Depression is the physical and emotional result of hopelessness – the ‘feeling‘ of hopelessness. We live in a world devoid of hope, and depression is the emotional product of that reality. The only thing that will actually change one’s life sufficiently as to destroy the cause, mechanics, and effects of depression is God’s hope and His word of hope. The answer is to get God’s hope back inside of you.

Hope will let you again see the ‘future positive possibility’ of your life. Without seeing it you will have no motivation or strength. The good Word of God, and the good word of others to you, can change the outlook and condition of your heart. Fight for God’s outlook with all you have. Fight it with the Word of God. (Also, confess the scriptures on Hopelessness.) Anyone who is among the living has hope.

God’s hope encourages, motivates, and keeps you on the road to faith, peace, and victory. And if you suffer from deep ongoing depression, get help. And please read this – Helping Others Is God’s Prescription for Depression. Send me a comment, we love you and we want to help you. You are important and you have value. You are not alone. With God’s help, you will climb out of this hole.

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down (depression), but a good word cheers it up. Proverbs 12:25 Holman Christian Standard Bible

These scriptures on depression will give you hope and will build your faith. Confess and meditate on them to win the fight against depression. The key is not losing Hope. Allow the hope of God to seep back into you. Remember, there is a real Person (God) behind each and every one of these promises. He promised them to you for a reason – to help you.

Deuteronomy 31:8 – The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.

Deuteronomy 33:27 – The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

2 Samuel 22:17-22 – He sent from above, he took me; he drew me out of many waters; (18) He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me. (19) They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay. (20) He brought me forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me. (21) The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. (22) For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

2 Samuel 22:29 – You are my lamp O Lord; the Lord turns my darkness into light.

Ecclesiastes 9:4 – Anyone who is among the living has hope.

Psalms 9:9 – The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

Psalm 27:14 –  Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.

Psalm 31:22,24 – You heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help… Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Psalm 34:18, 19 – The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (19) A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.

Psalm 37:23-24 – If the Lord delights in a man’s way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumbles, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

Psalm 43:5 – Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.

Psalm 55:22 – Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

Psalm 62:5 – Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.

Psalm 126:5 – Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

Psalm 143:7-8 – Answer me quickly, O Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I’ll lift up my soul.

Psalm 147:3 – He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 145:14 – The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

Proverbs 12:25 – Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down (depression), but a good word cheers it up.

Isaiah 26:3-4, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusts in Thee. Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength. (Perfect means complete. If I keep my part of the promise by staying steadfastly focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, He will keep His promise to give me His perfect peace. See also Philippians 4:6-7 below)

Isaiah 35:10 – And the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away

Isaiah 40:31, But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Isaiah 53:4 – Surely he took up our sicknesses and carried our sorrows.

Mark 9:23 – Everything is possible for him who believes.

Romans 4:18-22  – Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, so shall they seed be. (19) And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: (20) He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God. (21) And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able to perform. (22) And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

Romans 15:13 – May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

II Corinthians 7:6-7  – Nevertheless, God, that comforts, those that are depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus; (7) And not by his coming only, but by the consolation wherewith he was comforted in you, when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me; so that I rejoiced the more.

Philippians 4:6-7 – Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

James 4:8 – Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James 4:10 – Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

2 Peter 2:9 – The Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials.

1 Peter 4:12 – Dear Friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

1 Peter 4:13 – But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed

1 Peter 5:7 – Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Read how Lincoln Turned to the Bible to Manage His Depression and other articles: Scriptures Against HopelessnessScriptures Against WorryNew Testament Scriptures on Faith & BelievingDo God’s Promises Cover What You Want?

Comments

  1. This is very important and helpful message against depression. Taking refuge in God’s word is one best way to tackle life’s issues.

    God’s word is life and health to the hopeless. The depressed depends on it for an impression.

    I’m using this opportunity to inform you that I’ve also published an article on How To Overcome Depression. Hoping for an opportunity to share. God bless you all.

  2. This article and these amazing scriptures really helped me this morning. Sometimes our spirit enters into the dreaded gloom of depression. We experience an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, but thank God for Jesus! It is His unfailing love that resuscitates us, but we have to give him the opportunity to do so. Praise God that we can trust Him to give us what we need.

  3. These are wonder verses to fight with depression
    God bless you

    1. Powerful verses! I was just declaring many many scriptures just now.

  4. God loves you and if you read these scriptures daily they will help. Depression is darl but you can overcome it. Keep reading these scriptures daily.

  5. I have also noticed whenever I am happy, listening to music and dancing, someone or something out of nowhere does something/happens that makes me depressed and angry and fearful. It is a recurring theme. On my graduation day, less than 10 minutes from the hotel my mum and I stayed in, the taxi we were in just started swerving, I was in shock that I could not scream, it swerved twice then stopped. I was frozen in fear. A day of celebration that wanted to be turned into a day of sorrow, I am now afraid that will happen on everyday I want to celebrate something and I might not be so lucky the next time. I know it was GOD that stopped that car from swerving, he answered the prayer I prayed that morning before I left for my graduation. I just believe the universe is happy when I am miserable so whenever I finally achieve something, they try to eliminate me or nearly eliminate me. Sometimes I stay in my room locked up for days and no one comes to knock on my door to see if I am actually still alive, the only time someone like my Mum for example comes to knock on my door is to threaten to call people to come and bundle me and lock me in a mental hospital and that just makes me more angry and more depressed because after depression, I hate being caged and I cannot stand hospitals. Like I wrote, please keep me in your prayers and I will read and meditate on those scriptures. Thanks. GOD Bless

  6. I am tired of being depressed and having all those suicidal thoughts, it is indeed a spirit of heaviness and hopelessness and worthlessness because I feel these three ways. I feel isolated, rejected and useless most of the time. I feel like no one wants me around them like I am a disease, a deadly disease. I feel like no one will miss me when I am gone and whenever I tell people I feel this way they say I am being dramatic, they don’t understand and that makes me feel so worthless and useless and also like a fool. I have been battling depression since I was a teenager and I have nearly attempted suicide several times but I never go through with it because I am scared of death and hell fire. When I am depressed, I just stay in my room crying with the lights off and the curtains closed and I lose my appetite. I hate this feeling. I am not a food person but I still need to eat something even if it is a little to at least have a little energy. I will try and start reading those scriptures above and meditate on them as well but please keep me in your prayers. This spirit is ruining my life, I dropped out from school many years back because of this spirit but thank GOD I am a graduate now, I am currently doing my masters and I do not want this spirit to push me out of school again. It is ruining my life and I also become very angry as well and I am extremely short tempered. Please pray for me. Thanks.

    1. You are certainly not useless and worthless, look how far you’ve come and now getting your master’s, all while you’ve suffered from depression, wow, what an accomplishment! You have a lot to offer, please don’t give in to self-destructive urges. Can you see a therapist or meet with your clergy? God is so much stronger than the enemy, rely on Him to support you. He will not desert you, it just is sometimes so hard to see him through the clouds of despair – but He is there for you! Please seek help. Look up to the sky and see the beauty. I believe the clouds contain the souls of loved ones watching over us. Blessings

  7. Pray for me. I have been disturbed a lot by lack of steadfastness in Christ. Also, I am filled with lustful desires but I want to be set free by God’s saving grace.

  8. Praying for you! In God there is Hope and joy unspeakable! Continue to seek him. God Bless!

  9. LWANGA DANIEL(SOLDIER IN/OF CHRIST)
    Please pray for me lam also am passing through Alicia’s situation but mine is worse even addiction to lust fullness desires have consumed my life . Ever since i finished my high school last year 2017 my father/step mom had said to me if males reach 18 years have to find their home .but now i have no where to turn life is hard brothers and sisters,the most interesting part but sorrowful is people come to me asking for help because they see a gift in me of preaching the gospel ,i preach to my friends although every has lost hope&faith in God saying he does not even exist.ever since became born again i have seen many mountains,storm and darkest situations in my life. the scripture has even become true of what the apostle Paul said in Romans 2:17-24 preacher preaching but can not preach to him self.i have sometimes wondered why bad things happen to people who really what help from Jesus our lord. i have tried but still the holy spirit has talked through friends and other ways that my gift is preaching the gospel i don’t know your calling but Jesus says in Mathew that “first seek the kingdom of God and every thing shall be added onto you” friends. pray also to broken families like of father ,my little bro went way from home discouraged and hopeless i feel and fear now i may end up like my brother and others in our family.the devil used our father to stir hatred among his own family and step mom in performing witchcraft at home. now am working at a certain job which can not even afford for living of one person in two days here in Uganda my country.please pray to all believers in Christ in all round the world ,wickedness in spreading so fast like from Australia now days.but what i know the voice of truth always says to me not surrender even if trials come although some times being offended in talking the truth because it seems am liar to word of GOD of which i preach surely sometimes i don”t reveal the word or because it convicts me being guilt of my situation .
    ” Never surrender no matter what .Don”t go to GOD looking things for your own satisfaction because we will acquire nothing from this life”
    Peace,love be to you in the name our lord Jesus Christ our only savior Amen.

  10. Please pray for me lam also am passing through Alicia’s situation but mine is worse even addiction to lust fullness desires have consumed my life . Ever since i finished my high school last year 2017 my father/step mom had said to me if males reach 18 years have to find their home .but now i have no where to turn life is hard brothers and sisters,the most interesting part but sorrowful is people come to me asking for help because they see a gift in me of preaching the gospel ,i preach to my friends although every has lost hope&faith in God saying he does not even exist.ever since became born again i have seen many mountains,storm and darkest situations in my life. the scripture has even become true of what the apostle Paul said in Romans 2:17-24 preacher preaching but can not preach to him self.i have sometimes wondered why bad things happen to people who really what help from Jesus our lord. i have tried but still the holy spirit has talked through friends and other ways that my gift is preaching the gospel i don’t know your calling but Jesus says in Mathew that “first seek the kingdom of God and every thing shall be added onto you” friends. pray also to broken families like of father ,my little bro went way from home discouraged and hopeless i feel and fear now i may end up like my brother and others in our family.the devil used our father to stir hatred among his own family and step mom in performing witchcraft at home. now am working at a certain job which can not even afford for living of one person in two days here in Uganda my country.please pray to all believers in Christ in all round the world ,wickedness in spreading so fast like from Australia now days.but what i know the voice of truth always says to me not surrender even if trials come although some times being offended in talking the truth because it seems am liar to word of GOD of which i preach surely sometimes i don”t reveal the word or because it convicts me being guilt of my situation .
    ” Never surrender no matter what .Don”t go to GOD looking things for your own satisfaction because we will acquire nothing from this life”
    Peace,love be to you in the name our lord Jesus Christ our only savior Amen.

  11. Patrice when I accepted Jesus in my life, all hell broke loose, believe me when I tell you there has been so many times that I’ve wanted to give up. Tragedy happened, my husband walked out three months after the tragedy, my daughter became depressed and has struggled with college and her life. How many times have I wanted to leave and give up. But this makes me think more about God and how he didn’t abandon us when He asked the Father to take the cup, instead He said “let your will be done, not mine.” What I’m saying is the when the heat goes up, pray more, pray louder in your house, I believe that when blessing are coming, the enemy will try everything to make you give up and walk away, turn against God, DON’T LET THE ENEMY WIN, FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH. REMEMBER, THAT IN A BLINK OF AN EYE, GOD CAN CHANGE OUR CIRCUMSTANCES. BELIEVE TO RECEIVE!

  12. I pray in Jesus name for my daughter who is going through depression, I pray for everyone going through depression, may God heal my daughter and all others through the hope and promises in Him through Jesus Christ, Amen.

    1. Angie, remember that depression is a tool of the devil, please help your daughter keep faith and become stronger to resist!

  13. TO FATHER GOD BE ALL HONOR GLORY AND PRAISE. BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST JESUS KEEP OUR MIND STAYED ON HIM, AND HE WILL BRING US THROUGH, JOHN 10 VERSE 10. WITH FATHER GOD ALL THINGS R POSSIBLE, JOHN 14V 1, 2. GREATER HIS HE THAT HIS IN ME, THAN HE THAT HIS IN THE WORLD. LET US STAY PRAYED UP IN CHRIST JESUS. THE PEACE AND LOVE OF FATHER GOD, JESUS CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT REST AND ABIDE UPON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.

  14. In His Name

    I was encouraged by your awesome prayer when I feel like having a pity party and I do have them. I think about Jesus and His Finished work and His precious blood, His Grace.I feel better and sometimes ashamed Jesus paid a dept He didn’t owe and we owe a we can never pay. I pray the precious blood that never loses its power over you all In Jesus Name Amen.

  15. It’s hard to have or keep faith when it seems as if every single promise of HIS is concealed from you. I grew up in church got serious about GOD last August and my life has been down hill ever since. When I was doing it myself I never went without struggled or had a care in the world life was perfect but I didn’t want to chance dying and going to hell so I got baptized.Since I got saved and started living right everything that can happen has happened. I pray study and profess HIS word and promises tithe fast everything and my life is crap. Most days I wish I was dead. At this point I’m starting not to even believe in GOD. The only two reasons I’m still here is because I don’t want anyone raising my kid and if there is an actual hell I don’t want to go there for suicide. When people are going through stuff they don’t want to hear scriptures and promises they infuriate me personally. I believed the Bible and my life proves it to not be true for everyone.

    1. Patrice, just what has happened to you in the past year? Isn’t it possible that outside events have impacted on you that have little or nothing to do with you accepting God? Is it possible you were a bit conflicted over that decision and that affected your life? God will NOT betray you.

  16. Alicia,
    God is so pleased that you have passion and desire to use your gifts. He has great plans for you. The greater the plan He has, the more opposition; so when you see other people already blessed and not having the trouble you have, it may be because of this.
    God is not in a hurry though, and it’s more important to Him that He forms His character in us — that we become secure in who we are in Christ and not think “I’ll be somebody when I attain these goals”. I am talking to myself right now too , not just you.
    I have very strong gifts in art and poetry , and I believe I’m gifted musically but that gift has been so viciously atracked in my life — kept down — and I don’t even know how to tell others about it. As for art — that’s a long story but I’m 52 and finally started taking painting classes in 2014 . I started my own art business and have had some decent accomplishments with that — but going so slow in my opinion. So much obstacles and opposition— some from the enemy, some inside me.
    I’m reminding myself today that I need to look to God and let Him work in me that security in Him.
    I also need to be careful what I speak — decree positive things — productivity and progress— not “everything is going so slow”
    I hope this is helpful to you in some way and I’m saying a prayer for you.
    You are not a failure Sweetie. Not at all. Don’t give up on your dreams.

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