Josh Benner

Tag: Spiritual depression

  • Why we need to pursue God everyday

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    Do you have an area in your life today where you’re tempted to doubt God’s goodness?
    Life is hard. There are challenges we face.
    For some of us, it’s health. For some of us, it’s in the relationships we have. Maybe there’s a lot of conflict either with a friend or a neighbor or a family member. But things are just really tough. And maybe you’re in a situation that you just don’t like.
    In the Exodus, the Israelites constantly complain about not having enough, things not being good enough, life not being easy enough.
    For the Israelites, God works all of these signs and wonders. Miraculously redeems them.

    (more…)

  • Best of 2018. #4 No matter how terrible things seem, the gospel shows that there is always hope

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    As 2018 comes to a close, I am sharing some of my top posts from this year. 

    Andrew Stoecklein was pastor of a megachurch in California who took his life last week. I’ve seen many stories shared about this man this week. I’ve seen articles about social media posts his wife has made in the wake of the loss of her husband.

    It’s an incredibly sad story. Successful young pastor. Growing megachurch. He had struggled with depression and anxiety. Stoecklein had actually taken a four month sabbatical as he was battling these mental health issues and had returned earlier this month. (more…)

  • Young Sheldon episode tackles struggles in faith

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    While it’s a comedy about a boy-genius, CBS’s “Young Sheldon” took up some heavy theological topics in last weeks episodes titled “A crisis of faith and octopus aliens.”

    The show is a spin off of the Big Bang Theory where Iian Armitage plays Big Bang Theory character Sheldon Cooper as a child. It’s a comedy featuring this boy who’s incredibly brilliant in a family that’s pretty ordinary. His mother Mary (played by Zoe Perry) is an Evangelical Christian.

    In this episode,  a family friend passes away and Mary’s character is thrown into a Spiritual crisis.

    Her pastor tries to help by saying what works for him (serving others). Serving others is great. Serving others is healthy and it can be helpful to some people in a time of depression, because it shifts your focus onto others and their needs. In the episode, Mary attempts to throw her into service, church activity, Bible studies, plants a new garden. Yet she still can’t get over her sadness.

    She turns to drinking and withdrawing from faith, stops saying grace and doesn’t go to church one weekend. Sheldon notices the changes in her behavior and reaches out in his concern.

    “Faith means believing in something you can’t know for sure is real, and right now I am struggling with that,” Mary says.

    Sheldon doesn’t believe in God, but throws in an apologetic for his struggling mother:

    “Did you know that if gravity was slightly more powerful the universe would collapse into a ball? Also if gravity was slightly less powerful the universe would fly apart and there’s be no star or planets,”

    “Gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be and if the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the strong force wasn’t one percent, life wouldn’t exist, what are the odds that would happen all by itself?”

    -Young Sheldon

    When his mom question points out that Sheldon doesn’t even believe in God, he says he doesn’t, “but the precision of the universe at least makes it logical to conclude there’s a creator.”

    I really thought it was a great episode. I appreciate how it dealt with the subject of a person hitting a Spiritual wall. Because a significant part of Mary’s character both on Young Sheldon (and the same character on Big Bang Theory) is that she’s an Evangelical Christian. I didn’t think the episode was making fun of faith, rather I thought it was a sincere look into real struggles.

    The road of faith is not without its twists and turns, not without its bumps. It’s not without construction and slow downs.

    The temptation can be to want to make ourselves busy. That’s what Mary’s character initially does. But in the face of tragedy, in a world where people sin and where death is a result of that sin and where death is a consequence of the fallen world that all will face, to take that to God, and to lament the death that is in the world. It was not the original creation for the world, and it goes against our natural inclinations. Lament is a common practice in the Bible. It’s a practice that I think the modern American church (especially WASPs often overlook).

    Lament is an expression of grief and sorrow. Lament is based in the reality of who God is. Lament is based in a high view of the goodness of God in a fallen world.

    I think it’s important to be humble and to recognize that God is God and we are not. That God is sovereign.

    I think it’s important for Christians to remember the promises of God. And to remember them for what they are, not as caricatures or distortions. God doesn’t promise that life will be without pain (he promises the opposite). God doesn’t promise life will be without loss (he promises the opposite). God doesn’t promise that we’ll always be happy with our situations, or that things should be easy, or that we’ll be free of suffering. He promises the opposite.

    Sometimes our major misgivings with God come from a faulty understanding of who God is or what he has promised. Life is hard. The Bible doesn’t hide from that reality. Some churches can create this pressure that everything should always be ok, or that if you have enough faith, you should always be happy. Those aren’t Biblical views.

    The promises that God does make are that those who mourn can be blessed, for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4). That everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13). That nothing can separate us from the Lord of God (Romans 8:38). That there is grace and redemption for sin and that God has given us every Spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). That God hears the prayers of his people (1 Peter 3:12). And so many more promises the Bible makes.

    Sadly, many people turn away in times of despair.

    Where is your hope?

    People put hope in a lot of different things. For some, they put hope not in God but in the Church. The Church is great, but that is not our hope. For some, people put their hope in their efforts, their pursuits, their activities. That too will inevitably fail you. Our hope must be in the good, loving, and eternal God of the universe.

    Spiritual depression is common in the Christian life. Some of the greatest leaders in the history of the Church struggled with it. Because, as Mary said in the show, faith is believing in something you can’t know for sure. And when that is coupled with our sin, with our unfulfilled hopes, and with the sin that is in the world, sometimes there are struggles. There can hopefully be solace in knowing that. You’re not alone.

    And while we change, God is unchanging. And God continues to invite us into life through his son Jesus.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • No matter how terrible things seem, the gospel shows that there is always hope

    photo-1524024753536-2478712fa702.jpeg
    Andrew Stoecklein was pastor of a megachurch in California who took his life last week. I’ve seen many stories shared about this man this week. I’ve seen articles about social media posts his wife has made in the wake of the loss of her husband.

    It’s an incredibly sad story. Successful young pastor. Growing megachurch. He had struggled with depression and anxiety. Stoecklein had actually taken a four month sabbatical as he was battling these mental health issues and had returned earlier this month. (more…)

  • Why we need to pursue God everyday

    photo-1532298488760-970ff6decf61.jpeg
    Do you have an area in your life today where you’re tempted to doubt God’s goodness?
    Life is hard. There are challenges we face.
    For some of us, it’s health. For some of us, it’s in the relationships we have. Maybe there’s a lot of conflict either with a friend or a neighbor or a family member. But things are just really tough. And maybe you’re in a situation that you just don’t like.
    In the Exodus, the Israelites constantly complain about not having enough, things not being good enough, life not being easy enough.
    For the Israelites, God works all of these signs and wonders. Miraculously redeems them.
    Brings them to the edge of the Red Sea.
    They complain. “Why are we going to die out here?”
    Miraculously God parts the waters. Brings them across. Wipes out the greatest army the world had ever known.
    They get into the wilderness and they don’t have food.
    “Why were brought out here to die?”
    God provides food.
    They don’t have water.
    “Why were we brought here to die?”
    God gives them water.
    Blessing after blessing after blessing. And continually losing sight of all of that.
    They send out scouts who SEE the land and they’re like “Woah, this place is even better than advertised. This place is amazing!” But the people hear about the people in the land, “we can’t beat them. We can’t do it. It’s too much, it’s too hard.”
    It’s easy to judge them. To think, “Wow, the Israelites just didn’t get it.”
    But we often have more in common with the Israelites than we like to admit to ourselves. Their responses are so…human.
    What is your view of the Lord’s blessing? Is it gratitude and thankfulness?
    Or are you never happy because it’s never enough, never close enough to what you want? Never what you think you need?
    Eye on the prize.
    It’s what the Israelites never figured out during their wanderings. They didn’t learn how to enjoy God.
    God can be enjoyed in all circumstances and situations.
    We don’t have to wait until we get through a certain challenge. We don’t need to wait until we get to a certain level of Chrristian maturity. We don’t need to wait to enjoy God. We can rejoice in his goodness and majesty and dominion and holiness today.
    We can and we must.
    Or else, we’ll be like the Israelites. Continually seeing the blessings of God and never enjoying any of it because we always have something else to look at to worry about.
    They were walking in the wilderness but were so often not really walking with God.
    Let me ask you: how’s your Spiritual life today?
    For the Israelites on their wanderings, they had such little joy in God, trust in God, and love for God.
    That’s not the life God wants us to live.
    In time where you’re struggling and not finding joy and delight in God, and when God seems distant to you, how are you doing, Spiritually?
    How’s your devotional life?
    I’ll go out on a limb that it’s struggling, that you’re probably not taking it as seriously.
    Am I wrong?
    If you look back on times where you Spiritually snuggled, were those also the times when you were most serious about pursuing God daily?
    It takes a daily pursuit.
    You can’t take your foot off the gas.
    But it can be hard sometimes. It’s hard for me sometimes.
    It needs to be part of our daily life. Spending time in God’s word, spending time in prayer, having a worshipful heart towards God. And it needs to be part of our life to have a mind that is set on the things above, a mind that is devoted to God, the things of God, meditating on God, rejoicing in God and in his goodness.
    Clearly the Israelites struggled with that on their wanderings. Always finding reasons to complain about what they had been given. Never happy.
    That’s not saying it’ll all become easy.
    But we can experience all of that with God or without God. Rejoicing in God or complaining about God.
    How are you doing today?
    God needs to be the focal point of your day.

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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