Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the most celebrated preacher of the 1800s, sometimes couldn’t get out of bed. While crowds of thousands waited to hear him, a darkness would settle over him so heavy he couldn’t even name its cause. William Cowper, who gave the church the beloved hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” fought suicidal despair for most of his life. He attempted to end his life more than once, and died fearing he was beyond God’s mercy. Yet, no one in their right minds would dare call either of these men weak in faith.
So why are we so quick to say it of ourselves?
Many believers who consider having antidepressants carry a quiet, painful fear: that needing the medicine proves their faith has failed. If I really trusted God, would I need a pill? Let’s take that fear seriously—and then, gently, set it down.
“But Spurgeon got through it without medicine”
The most common objection sounds spiritual: Believers like Spurgeon and Cowper survived their darkness without modern medicine. If they could, why can’t we? Well, it doesn’t hold up, as we shall see.
- They’re simply the ones we remember. History keeps the writings of the survivors, not of the countless others who were quietly destroyed. And even Cowper barely survived—he tried to end his life more than once and spent years under another’s care. “They managed” is far too cheerful a word for the ordeals these men went through.
- They lacked antidepressants the way they lacked antibiotics. People also “got through” appendicitis and childbirth before modern medicine—many of them by dying. A treatment that was missing in the past isn’t proof it was never needed. It’s a measure of how much people suffered without it.
- They used every means they had. Spurgeon escaped to the south of France for his health again and again. Luther battled his black moods with music, hard work, and the deliberate company of friends. They didn’t refuse help on principle; they reached for whatever their century could offer.
- Endurance earns nothing. There’s no spiritual prize for suffering longer than we must. The idea that the believer who refuses medicine is somehow holier is a quiet lie. God doesn’t reward us for turning down the relief He himself provides.
Far from arguing against medicine, these witnesses argue for it.
Faith doesn’t mean refusing help
God gives both the goal and the road to it. He feeds us—but through farmers, bakers, and bread. He heals us—but very often through doctors and medicine. Trusting God has never meant refusing the help He provides. By the logic that “taking medicine equals distrust,” eyeglasses, insulin, and antibiotics would all be failures of faith too. Faith isn’t the rejection of help; it’s trust in the God who supplies it.
Scripture is astonishingly honest about darkness.
The premise that people of faith don’t get depressed simply collapses under the biblical witness. Elijah, fresh off Mount Carmel, collapsed under a broom tree and asked God to let him die (1 Kings 19). And God’s first response wasn’t rebuke but sleep, food, and gentleness, then a quiet word. That’s a stunning pastoral template: physical care first. The Psalms of lament (Psalms 42–43, 6, 13, 38, and especially Psalm 88, which ends in unrelieved darkness) give inspired voice to despair. Paul himself “despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8). His thorn wasn’t removed despite three earnest prayers (2 Corinthians 12:7–9)—grace came in the affliction, not always by ending it.
We’re body and soul
We’re not souls trapped inside disposable bodies. We’re whole persons—body and soul woven together. When the world broke under sin, our bodies broke with it, and depression often has deeply physical roots: chemistry, hormones, the genes we were born with. Scripture itself ties body and spirit together: “a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). And the Bible never sneers at physical remedies. Paul told Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach (1 Timothy 5:23). Jesus said it’s the sick who need a doctor (Matthew 9:12). Luke, who wrote an entire Gospel, was himself a physician (Colossians 4:14). Medicine is one of God’s good gifts to a hurting world.
Treat the body. Tend the soul
Here’s where balance matters, because two opposite mistakes wait on either side. The first treats every struggle as a sin to be confessed: this was the approach of Job’s unhelpful friends, who only deepened his wound. The second reduces a human being to brain chemistry, as though a tablet could hand you forgiveness, meaning, or hope. Neither is enough on its own. Medicine may quiet the storm enough for the soul to hear again; prayer, Scripture, and the fellowship of God’s people reach what no medicine can touch. As pastors and counsellors such as David Murray and Ed Welch, and Michael Emlet—a medical doctor as well as counsellor—have patiently shown, the wise path is both: treat the body and tend the soul together.
So, is it a failure of faith?
No. Taking antidepressants can itself be an act of faith—humble trust in the God who gives us doctors, medicines, and every good gift, and faithful care of the body he has placed in our keeping. While medication isn’t the whole answer—it cannot forgive sin or give hope—but it’s a legitimate, even wise, means of grace’s outworking. And the idea that it’s a failure of faith to take medication is not only untrue, it lays a burden of guilt on people who’re already carrying far more than they can bear.
If we’re walking through that darkness now, let’s not carry that burden alone. Or carry that burden in shame. Let’s speak to a doctor. Or to a pastor or a trusted friend. The same God who once sent food and rest to a despairing Elijah, when he longed to die beneath a desert tree, is no less tender toward us today.
Our standing doesn’t rise—or fall—with our feelings
And here, perhaps, is the deepest comfort of all. The feeling of God’s nearness isn’t the same as the fact of it. Depression can rob us of any sense that God loves us while changing nothing whatever about whether He does. Our acceptance before God rests on Christ—not on our mood, or our energy. Or our serotonin. On our darkest mornings, we’re held every bit as securely as on our brightest.
FAQs SECTION:
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
Were there other strong believers, besides Spurgeon and Cowper, who struggled with depression?
Many. Martin Luther endured seasons of crushing inner anguish he called his Anfechtungen (spiritual afflictions) fighting them with Scripture, music, and the deliberate company of friends. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, wrote in Grace Abounding of years of suicidal despair and tormenting thoughts before he finally found peace. The missionary David Brainerd filled his diary with melancholy even as God used him powerfully, and the Puritan writer Hannah Allen left a remarkable account of her own descent into despair and her eventual recovery. Far from disqualifying them, their darkness became part of how God shaped and used them. Luther saw these episodes not as proof of weak faith but as a normal, even necessary, part of the Christian life. He believed they drove a person away from self-reliance and back to clinging to Christ and the bare promises of Scripture.
Doesn’t the Bible command us to “not be anxious” and to “rejoice always”? Isn’t depression simply disobedience?
These commands describe the healthy fruit of a heart at rest in God; they’re not a weapon to wield against those who’re suffering. The same Scriptures that call us to joy also give us whole books of lament and tears, showing us deep sorrow and real faith can live side by side (2 Corinthians 6:10). Clinical depression is often a wound, not a willful refusal to obey, and we can no more “decide” our way out of it than out of a fever. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones argued in Spiritual Depression, the call to rejoice is an invitation to gently preach truth to ourselves—never a verdict of guilt.
If God is sovereign and good, why doesn’t He simply heal my depression when I ask?
God does answer, but not always by removing the affliction; sometimes He chooses to meet us inside it and bring good out of it that we could never have imagined. Scripture is full of saints whose suffering wasn’t lifted but transformed, their faith deepened in the furnace. Healing may come slowly, or through a doctor and medicine, or be withheld for reasons we will understand only later. God’s goodness isn’t measured by how quickly our pain ends, but by His unbreakable commitment to our ultimate good in Christ (Romans 8:28).
Will antidepressants change who I am, or dull the spiritual highs and lows that draw me to God?
Medication is meant to correct a malfunction, not to erase our personality—more often it returns people to themselves rather than taking them away. The intensity of our feelings was never the true measure of our spiritual life; the Spirit works through ordinary, restored faculties, not only through dramatic emotion. Many people find when the crushing weight of depression is lifted, they’re freed to pray, worship, and love others more fully than before. Our growth in grace rests on the Spirit’s faithful work in us, not on the height of our feelings.
Isn’t depression sometimes caused by sin? And doesn’t medication just mask the real problem?
Sometimes guilt, bitterness, or distorted thinking do feed our darkness, and those must be brought honestly before God rather than ignored. But to assume sin is always the cause is the very mistake Job’s friends made, and it wounds the innocent. Medicine and the work of the soul aren’t rivals: easing the physical fog can give a person the clarity to face what truly needs facing. Wise care tends to the whole person—body, mind, and heart—without pretending a pill is the whole answer.
What about side effects, or the fear that I’ll become dependent and never come off the medication?
These are real and worthy concerns, best weighed honestly with a trusted doctor who knows our situation. Caring wisely for the body God gave us means counting both the costs and the benefits, rather than letting fear alone make the decision. Needing ongoing medication is no more shameful than needing daily insulin or blood-pressure tablets; leaning on a good gift God provides isn’t lack of faith. Whether the season turns out to be short or long, the goal is the same—faithful stewardship, not striving to prove something.
Have Christians always been suspicious of medicine for the mind, or is this a modern idea?
The honouring of physicians and the use of medicine as a gift of God runs deep through church history; believers built many of the world’s first hospitals as an act of love for their neighbours. Leaders such as John Calvin valued the healing arts as part of God’s ordinary care for His creatures. The notion that turning to medicine signals weak faith is actually a fairly recent and narrow idea, not the historic mainstream of Christian thought. Caring for the body has long been understood as cooperating with God’s goodness, not doubting it.
Our Related Posts
- Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Right or Wrong?
- Genetic Engineering and Faith: Christian Ethics in the Age of CRISPR
- Medical Marijuana and the Christian Conscience: Bible Perspectives
- What is the Christian Position on Euthanasia?
