Do you ever experience seasons of emotional distress, mental confusion, spiritual darkness? Have you gone through times and experiences that put you into a state of perplexity, causing you to wonder why God had seemingly abandoned you? (Please note the word “seemingly”, because the Bible testifies to the fact that God never abandons His children.)

You are not alone! Really – you are not alone. There are multitudes of people who have experienced the same thing. It is commonplace among humans to go through times that test us, and cause us to question ourselves: Does God really care about me; does He hear my prayers; is He not our ever-present help in times of difficulty; has He left me to deal with this alone?

Charles Spurgeon, known as “the prince of preachers”, by his own admission confessed that he battled seasons of depression. One of his most well-known quotes on the subject is, “There are dungeons underneath the Castle of Despair as dreary as the abodes of the lost, and some of us have been in them.”

There are dungeons underneath the Castle of Despair.

What a graphic, horrible image that creates in our minds. It is bad enough to be in the Castle of Despair, to be in in the throes of mental and emotional upheaval, to experience the fingers of darkness invading our thoughts and minds, filling us with a sense of foreboding, helplessness, and despair. But to have it engulf us to the point of being enslaved to it, to actually be taken from the Castle to the dungeon below.

The dungeon is where you go from the freedom of moving about in the castle above, to the place where you are chained, detained, unable to move, locked in that state of mental anguish and emotional turmoil. You begin to believe that there is simply no way out, that this will be the lot of your life forever. Spurgeon, again, gives more painful insight to this matter: “I think it would have been less painful to have been burned alive at the stake than to have passed through those horrors and depressions of spirit.”

I think it would have been less painful to have been burned at the stake.

Perhaps you see a bit of yourself in these quotes from Spurgeon. Perhaps you have spent some time in the Castle of Despair. And maybe, just maybe, you have at times felt yourself imprisoned in that deep, dark, dungeon, far beneath the surface, in the cold, dark clutches of despair and hopelessness. And maybe, someone reading these words, is actually there right now, this very moment. You are thinking to yourself, “How did he know? Has he been looking into my life? Has someone told him what I’m going through?”

No! I only know this because it is the common need of humanity. We are all prone to bouts of depression. One final quote from Spurgeon: “Fits of depression come over the most of us. Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down.”

Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down.

If anyone has been peering into our windows, it was the spirit of Spurgeon. He made these statements over 125 years ago, and they still ring true today. We are all prone to periods of depression – sometimes quite mild, sometimes extremely intense. So the question is how do we handle it? What are we to do in such times?

Spurgeon lived with it, as do many today. However, Spurgeon learned how to deal with it on those occasions in which he felt the fingers of depression wrapping around his mind. First, and foremost, Spurgeon looked at all of life through the lens of Scripture. Doing that, he believed fully in the fact that nothing happens in life outside of the will of God. Therefore, God brings into our personal experiences of life things that are uniquely designed specifically for us that will result in our good. His desire is that His children become more and more like Jesus as we go through life. He either personally ordains, or providentially guides, those things that will facilitate that desire.

Second, Spurgeon learned that a basic human need is rest, a time of getting away from it all in nature. A person cannot just go full speed through life without taking time to rest and refresh. Some of my most memorable moments of spiritual growth were in seasons of just getting away from the rigorous routine of life, taking a quiet walk, or going to one of my favorite places of solitude, and spending time allowing nature to remind me once again of the greatness and goodness of God. The psalmist often spoke of how the creation itself is testimony to God’s goodness and grace.

Finally, Spurgeon learned to look at everything through the lens of Scripture. In the pages of the Bible we learn the truth of God’s love for us. His desire is to see His children experience Him in His fullness. It is not to experience Him in what we can get from Him, but to experience Him, personally. To get to know Him intimately. To be so close to Him that we do as Jesus did, call Him “Abba.” The name is only found three times in the Bible (see Mark 14:36, Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6). In each, Jesus and Paul are referring to God in the most intimate way. To try to describe the difference between Father and Abba is difficult, but to think of it in the most simple of terms, Abba is like calling the Father “daddy”. It is an extremely intimate term, showing the close relationship between the one using it and the person being spoken of or to.

So, let’s try to learn lessons from someone who had truly been there – in the deep, dark recesses of the dungeon beneath the Castle of Despair. And lets remember – God, our Father, our Abba, is with us always and in all things. To Him be the glory for His goodness and grace.

Blessings!