Lies We Tell Ourselves When We’re Depressed – How To Challenge Them

When you’re depressed you don’t always see tho gs accurately. Depression can feel like being smothered in a blanket, cut off from the rest of the world disoriented, and alone. When you’re depressed it’s easy to start believing things that you’d never believe when your well. It’s as if depression is sitting in your mind, telling you things that just aren’t true.

Here are some lies depression can tell you:

1. You’re All Alone. Depression thrives when you believe you’re by yourself. Sometimes this lie is phrased as “nobody cares” or “nobody understands” or “I have to cope with this by myself.” it tried to convince you that you’re completely isolated. What’s the truth? Unless you’re a hermit living in a cave in the middle of a desert, you’re not alone. You’re part of something larger. That might be your family, not an online community, or the people who live in your town, or even you’re friends. This might not mean everyone cares about your mental health but it means that you’re part of something bigger and that you’re connected to something.

2. Things Will Never Change. Depression doesn’t like to be challenged, and it stops you from doing so by telling you there’s no point and that your life is going to be miserable forever. What’s the truth? Everything changes. Life is about change. Sometimes it’s slow, like a river eroding a mountain; sometimes it’s as fast as the sun coming out from behind a cloud. You weren’t born depressed, so you know that your mood has changed in the past. And the fact that you have really bad days means that some days are marginally less bad. Everything changes and that includes our moods.

3. It’s All Your Fault. This is a classic depression lie. Not only are we feeling miserable, we should also feel guilty. What’s the truth? People become depressed for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s in response to loss, or because the world seems overwhelming. Sometimes it’s because the chemical in our brains are out of balance. Maybe we did something which led to our current low mood. Maybe we made a bad choice and we’re now stuck in a cycle of misery and guilt. But ‘cause’ isn’t the same as ‘fault’ even if we caused our situation – and most things in life have more than one simple cause – that doesn’t mean our depression is our fault. Depression would love to blame us, because then we won’t challenge it. Don’t fall this lie.

4. You’re Not Really Depressed. You’re just lazy. This is a lie that enables depression to take over our lives. Why would you seek any help if your not really depressed? Depression wants us to believe that our problem is just a character flaw, and not an illness. What’s the truth? Having no motivation is not the same as being lazy. Having no hope for the future is not the same as being lazy. Even if we’re normally someone who lives the easy life, that doesn’t make it okay for us to feel unhappy every day.

5. You Need To Be Depressed Sometimes. This lie is phrased as “you’ve been depressed for so long that’s you have no other identity.”That’s a gross misrepresentation of the idea that depression is a coping mechanism. What’s the truth? Sometimes it’s helpful to understand depression as a way of coping with overwhelming circumstances. But thats not the same as “needing depression” if we have an infection our body might give us a fever, the high temperature helps to kill of the infection. But we wouldn’t deliberately give ourselves a fever Just in case we caught an infection. And we wouldn’t have been depressed for so long that it’s now our only available identity. it’s ust another version of the things never change lie. We won’t always feel this way and we certainly don’t need to feel this way.

It can be difficult to challenge negative thoughts when we’re suffering from depression. When we are depressed it’s hard to believe that anything could possibly beep. If feels like everything is hopeless, and that therapy will probably be a waste of time. One of the most insidious and destructive aspects of depression is that it tricks people into beliefs test there is no hope and no help.

I suffered with depression most of my life. One thing I have learned is that talking about it helps and that challenging it helps.

If you suffer with depression here’s what I’ve learned over the years, set your alarm clock every morning, even when you have nothing to do get up that same time each day. Shower, get dressed and have a healthy breakfast, get out of the house/apartment and do something. And spend at least 30 minutes in the sun each day.

When a therapist suggested this to me, my first thought was that “He’s crazy,” but to my surprise it actually helped.

Believing Is Seeing

You might have seen the title of this post and thought ; isn’t it the other way around. But if you really think about it, we believe without seeing every single day. Even though we may see a news report, we did not actually witness the event. We listen to the gossip others and believe their words to be fact.

However, when it come to believing that God is God, and that the Bible Is Holy and true, many people struggle.

Why is it that we have a much harder time believing in God, than we do a story on the news? The answer is doubt. Doubt is an incredibly powerful weapon that the devil uses to attack the minds of those whose faith is weakened due to struggles in life, feeling distanced from God, or who have never truly known the Savior.

But faith has never been something we can see. There is no visual evidence. The official definition of Faith is a “firm belief in something of which there is no proof.” Faith requires that we believe despite not having visual evidence. If seeing were believing, than Faith would be irrelevant and unnecessary.

Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “ Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

We can’t see God, but we can His presence in our lives if we believe. We can’t see God, but we can see His power working within us. When we choose to believe, then we see.

If you have been doubting God’s existence because you can not see His activity in your life, pray for His divine intervention. Pray for Him to saturate your life so powerfully that you cannot doubt that He is at work.

It seems that more people today have their faith in the root of humanism. This faith is based on an interest in human affairs at the human scale. The faith of man, they have faith in material possessions. Don’t let your faith be in something you may lose. The earth will fall away and materiel things will rot away.

It’s Was Never About Us

Here’s the bottom line: The Christian life, the church, our faith are not about us, they’re about Him – His plan, His Kingdom, His glory.

It is really the struggle of all struggles. It is counterintuitive for us all. It’s the things that make our lives messy and our relationships conflictual. It’s what sidetracks our thoughts and kidnaps our desires. It is the thing below all the other things that you could point to the argues our need for Greece. It is the one battle that you never escape. It is one place working out of 10 times we need rescued. It is a fight that God wages on our behalf to help us to remember life is simply not about us. It’s about God.

This is precisely why the first four letters of the Bible may be the most important words: “In the beginning, God…” These are for thunderously important words. They really do change everything, and the way you think about your identity, meaning, and purpose to the way that you approach even the most incidental of human duties. Everything that was created Was made by God for God. All the glories of the created world were designed to point to His glory. The universe is His designed to function according to His purpose and plan. That includes you and me. We were not meant to exist according to our own little self oriented plan, living for our own moments of glory. No we were created to live for Him..

So, where in the Godward living are we meant to find expression? It is meant to be expressed not just on our religious dimension of our lives, but in every aspects of our existence. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, when Paul thinks of the life we are called to live for the Glory of God, he doesn’t first think of the big, life-changing, subconsciously spiritual moments of life. No, he thinks of something at mundane and repetitive is eating and drinking. Even the most regular, seemingly important tasks of our lives must be shaped and directed by a heartfelt desire for the glory of God. No I don’t No about you, but in the busyness of life I lose sight of God’s existence, let alone His glory.

Maybe we should start right now admitting that there is nothing less natural for us and to live for the glory of another. This admission is the doorway not to despair, but to hope. God knew that in our sin we would never live this way, so He sent His Son to live a life we couldn’t, To die on our behalf, and to rise again, conquering sin and death. He did this so that we would not only be forgiven for our allegiance to our own glory, but have every grace we need to live for His. When we admit our need for help, we connect ourselves to the rescue that He has already provided in His Son, Jesus.

Psalm 115

A Soul Is A Terrible Thing To Lose

When you lose lose your soul you lose the most important thing you have. Because when you lose your soul. You lose you.

He called the multitude to Himself with His disciples,and said to them, “ Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; and whoever will lose his life for my sake and the sake of the Good News will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? For what will a man give in exchange for his life? For whoever will be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when he comes in his Father’s glory, the Holy Angels.

Mark 8:34-38

It has been said that a mind is a terrible waste. But today’s post will take this statement a little further.

In this life we face many hurts. But we also suffer many losses in life as well.

None of us like to lose:

  • Money
  • Homes
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Love ones
  • Friends

And the list could go on and one. All of us suffer, but when we lose money, we can continue to work and earn more. When we lose a home, we can buy another one. We can get another job. Even when we lose a loved one, if we keep our hand’s in God’s hand we will see them again.

But if we lose your soul, we lose the most important thing we have. we lose ourselves.

The Word of God tells us

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:7

Jesus predicts His death for the first time.

Jesus’s teaching that the Son of Man must suffer corresponds to Daniel’s prophecies that God was in complete control of the plan for redemption. The suffering also recalls Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53.

The fact of His being rejected looks back to the rejected “stone” in Psalm 118:22.

Jesus knew exactly from what quarter the rejection would come from: the leaders, leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. These three groups made up the Council, the Jewish Supreme Court that ultimately sentenced Jesus to be killed.

This is where text will begin; A soul is a terrible thing to lose.

Remember in Mark 8:34 when Jesus called the multitudes to Him with His disciples and said whoever will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow.

Jesus invites every person to follow, but one who desires to follow Hin most must have two attitudes:

1. Willingness to put aside their selfish ambition

2. Willingness to take up his or her cross.

To put aside selfish ambition means to surrender immediate material gratification in order to discover and secure one’s true self and God’s interests.

It is a willingness to let go of selfish desires and earthly security.

This attitude turns self-centered ness to God- centeredness.

We not only have to put aside selfish ambition but we must take up our cross and follow Jesus.

To take up one’s cross. Jesus’s words mwant that His followers had to be prepared to obey God’s word and follow His will no matter what the consequences for the sake of the gospel,

That means we have to let go of something to follow Christ. We have ti stop all the faking and shaking . We have to get rid of some things and become obedient to the Word of God.

A cross come from specifically walking in Christ’s steps, and embracing His life.

It comes from bearing disdain because we are embracing the narrow way of the Cross – that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6).

We must understand that from the biblical perspective “Losers are Keepers.”

Here’s The Golden Nugget of the this message.

The Christian Life is a paradox:

To attempt to keep your life means only to lose it. A person who keeps his or her life in order to satisfy their desires and goals from God ultimately loses life.

Not only does that person lose eternal life, he or she losses the fullness of life promised to those who are followers of Christ.

Those who willingly give up their lives for the sake of Christ and the gospel actually find true life.

To give up one’s life for Christ’s sake refers to a person refusing to renounce Christ, even if the punishment were death. To be willing to put personal desires and life itself into God’s hands means to understand that nothing that we can gain on our own in our earthly lives can compare to what we gain with Christ

Jesus wants us to choose to follow Him rather than lead a life of sin and self-satisfaction.

He wants up to stop trying to control our own destiny and to let Him direct us. This makes good sense because, as the creator, Christ knows better then we do what real life is about.

What can you give in exchange for your soul.

Mark 8:36-36 says, “for what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?

Jesus asked His listeners a rhetorical question.

What good would it be for a person to gain the whole world (that is to have power or financial control over the entire world system of which Satan is the head) but to lose their soul (that is to lose eternal life with God).

Whatever a person has on earth is only temporary; it cannot be exchanged for his or her soul.

Mark 8:38 says, ‘Whoever therefore will be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him will also the Son of Man (Jesus) be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the Holy Angels.

Jesus constantly turned the world’s perspective upside down with talk of the first and the last, keeping and giving up,

He offers us a choice.

If we choose to be ashamed of Him, than Jesus would be ashamed of us. Being ashamed of them at His second coming

He warns us that we reject Him, we will in turn be rejected from eternal life with Him. By extension, those who are not ashamed of Him and His Words, in spite of this adulterous and sinful culture surrounding us, would be accepted by Christ when He returns in glory.