Craig Groeschel: Asking for Help is a Sign of Wisdom, Not Weakness

Thousands of years ago, God gave Solomon wisdom to share with us: “Two are better than one. . . . If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Eccl. 4:9–10). Those words have been confirmed time and time again by the modern research we’ve brought out in this chapter when it comes to mental health.

One three-year study discovered that increased loneliness leads to increased depression. Loneliness has a more powerful effect on increasing depressive symptoms than demographic factors, marital status, and perceived stress or hostility.

You are not healthy in isolation.

You also don’t heal well in isolation.

One study states, “A sense of belonging and emotional safety with family, friends, and communities is built through actual interactions. It’s not just a little bonus to forge these connections, they have real benefits. Feeling well-connected to others contributes to mental health, meaning in life, and even physical well-being.”

A doctor with Stanford University writes, “People who feel more connected to others have lower levels of anxiety and depression, higher self-esteem, and greater empathy.” Addressing connections, one treatment center offers, “In many cases depression can lead people to become isolated from family and friends, which can ultimately worsen their feelings of sadness and helplessness. Attempting to make connections with others is crucial for people that have issues of depression.”

Acknowledge you need help from other people. That might be a professional counselor whom you meet with regularly to get a different perspective and tools to help you, or a doctor who helps you by prescribing medicine or a change of diet.

No matter what else you do, I would strongly encourage you to join a small group. The right Christian companions can become a spiritual support group that prays for and encourages you with truth from God’s Word. I honestly don’t know how people overcome the forces of darkness without people standing by them, encouraging and praying for them. You need to experience, if you haven’t yet, how powerful it is to have people praying for you.

In a letter to a friend, Martin Luther, the pioneer of the Protestant Reformation, described one of his bouts with intense depression: “I spent more than a week in death and hell. My entire body was in pain, and I still tremble. Completely abandoned by Christ, I labored under the vacillations and storms of desperation and blasphemy against God.”

So what helped Luther get through his darkest days? In the next sentence, he wrote, “But through the prayers of the saints, God began to have mercy on me and pulled my soul from the inferno below.”

Luther credited the support and prayers of encouraging Christian friends as the rope he grabbed onto so God could pull him out of the depths. Who are you tethered to? Think about who is holding your rope and whose rope you’re holding.

Acknowledge you need help. Not only from other people but also from God. That’s what Martin Luther did.

In the midst of his depression, Luther also disciplined himself to meditate on Scripture to help him find hope in God. At one point he found himself relying on and returning again and again to the words of Psalm 46:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. . . .

The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

When Luther felt his depression lifting, he used Psalm 46 as his inspiration to write a hymn he hoped might benefit others, titled “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” Martin Luther, who felt the agony of depression, would tell you that God is still your refuge, your mighty fortress, too.

So would Charles Spurgeon. Remember the Prince of Preachers from the 1800s? He experienced success as a pastor but was mauled by depression most of his life. His wife described him with words like “weeping, and wailing, and indescribable sorrow” and once said, “My beloved’s anguish is so deep and violent that . . . we sometimes fear he will never preach again. It was truly the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ through which we then walked . . . the pathway was so dark that ofttimes, when we lifted up our foot to set forward, we knew not where or upon what we should set it next!”

What do you do when life gets that dark? Spurgeon said, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.” The wave he was referring to was his suffering. We’re told in Isaiah 26:4, “Trust [confidently] in the Lord forever [He is your fortress, your shield, your banner], For the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages]” (AMP). Rock of Ages is one of many names for God, revealing that he is strong, unmovable, our sanctuary and security.

Spurgeon was explaining that when the waves come, we don’t just try to get through it. We can actually learn to kiss the wave, meaning to embrace suffering, because we recognize that it can bring us to God and allow us to experience his loving presence in a way we never have.