“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will praise Him, my Savior and my God.” Psalm 42:11

I read about an artist who tried to paint a portrait of Pastor Charles Spurgeon. With the great preacher sitting in his favorite chair, the artist said with great frustration, “I can’t paint you! Your face is different every day! You are never the same!”

The most popular preacher of the 19th century was one of the most burdened man because of his battle with depression.

It is said that Charles Spurgeon owned more than thirty books on mental health. He read about depression, wrote about depression, spoke about depression and suffered from depression. Spurgeon’s letters contain many references to his sinking, suffering spirit. He once said of himself, “I feel like a prisoner, for I weep without knowing why. I pity anyone who has to suffer what I have.”

Some biographers have claimed Spurgeon suffered from bipolar disorder because he battled with debilitating highs and lows at times. Others believed that his “fainting fits” were caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. While others believe that he suffered with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is a deep depression that occurs mostly during the long winter months.

Charles called depression “soul sickness,” but he also understood that the brain is just as broken as the body. If the body needs medicine, why not the mind? He once wrote, “It is not repentance I need, but relief from depressing spirits.”

Why was Spurgeon depressed? Here are a few reasons from his own writings.

He believed that he suffered with a chemical imbalance. He wrote, “The mind can descend far lower than the body, for there are bottomless pits. Some are touched with melancholy from their birth.”

He believed that illness brought it on. He wrote, “I have been very ill for more than five weeks, and during that time I have been brought into deep waters of mental depression. A sluggish liver will produce most fearsome emotions.”

There was tormenting trauma in his life that he rarely spoke about. But he did acknowledge, “There are dungeons beneath my castle of despair as dreary as the abodes of the lost, and some of us have been in them.”

He experienced severe loneliness as a pastor. He once expressed it this way, “This loneliness, which if I am not mistaken, is felt by many of my brethren. It is a fertile source of my depression.”

Charles also knew it to be the enemy's attack on him. Sometimes when he could not preach on a Sunday, he wrote, "When I am ready to deliver God's word that is heavy on my spirit, the black dog of depression starts biting at my emotions."

There’s a very important point to Spurgeon’s depression, it never stopped his amazing ministry – in fact, it helped!

Spurgeon’s many faces might have frustrated the artist trying to paint his portrait, but his “thorn in the flesh” gave him a multi-faceted empathy for his sheep. That’s one reason he was called “the people’s preacher.” His weakness reminded him that, as humans, we are all designed from dust and disabled by sin.

Whatever our shadow of sufferings we may walk through at times, let’s remember, “We are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ.” Whenever we have to come up against our “thorn in the flesh” remember, “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.” When we feel like throwing in the towel, remember that God is our refuge and strength - a very present help in times of troubles.

God bless you,

Pastor Dave