Depression: A Right or a Privilege?

In America, we are at an all time high in terms of the number of people on anti-depressants. Our children are now medicated for having too much energy while at school. The makeup of that energy might be a combination of too much sugar in the diet (which is why childhood obesity is at an all time high), too much television (and, in many cases, the obscene contents thereof), and the expectation of constant visual stimulation, compounded by nonstop video games. A fourth cause might be a wholesale abandonment of biblical child training in favor of permissive parenting. This removing of boundaries leaves children internally screaming for someone to bring structure and consequences to their sinful little lives. I have one friend who has definded ADD (attention deficit disorder) as “Absense of Dad’s Discipline”. So to feign some sense of order and to at least make classrooms somewhat manageable, Ritalin and other zombie-like state inducing drugs are administered.

While this may bring short term solutions to the difficulties of classroom management, no one knows what long term problems are being created, both in the lives of the drug dependent individual or as a whole to society. But the common thread to all the above mentioned problems is indulgence. The lack of restraint and self denial. The unwillingness to refrain from pleasing each of the 5 senses. While the humanist would accuse those refraining from indulgence as living a repressed life, in reality, it is only the person who can happily do without who successfully battles common bouts of depression (there are those cases which are the extreme, but those exceptions are not the focus of this article). To consistently gratify the senses to indulgence creates an expectation, a sense of entitlement within individuals. In essense, the materialism and ease of aquiring all we could possibly want is the very cause of many of our depression issues. Because when the level of gratification is not constantly met, the sinful innerman throws a psychological temper tantrum. When our ridiculously high level of expectation falls short, we throw grandiose internal pity parites, unable to fathom why we didn’t get what “we deserve”.

C.S. Lewis writes, “”A right to happiness”…sounds to me as odd a right to good luck. For I believe-whatever one school of moralists may say-that we depend for a very great deal of our happines on circumstances outside of human control. A right to happiness doesn’t, for me, make more sense than a right to be six foot tall, or to have a millionaire for your father, or to get good weather whenever you want to have a picnic.” In other words, as much as we may try to use externals (food, sex, entertainment, material possessions,etc), the effort to use them is more of a problem than the problem itself, for the very effort indicates a failure to be content in the circumstances God has placed one in. It is Christ alone who brings us contentment. Notice I didn’t say “it is Christ alone who brings us happiness”. Ask the prophet Jeremiah how much happiness he had. How about John while sitting in oil being deep fried. Where were the wonderful, feel good Christian slogans then? God desires holiness above happiness, obedience above emotions.

Now the cynic will interpret this as a mandate to walk around with the down countenance and “woe is me , I’m a Christian” attitude. That is taking an admonition for contentment and turning it into contempt. “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad” Proverbs 12:25). I submit to you that many (if not most) of our anxieties are caused by an expectation of having all of our wants met, our senses satisfied, our urges indulged. The rest are brought on by those “circumstances outside of our control” as Lewis stated. The Bible states, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7).