Dealing with Depression: Put the Loss in Perspective

After you have identified and accepted a loss, you must then put the loss in perspective. Seek to understand how your losses fit into the whole scheme of life. This will help you to let them go.

After Job experienced deep suffering and severe losses, he finally realized that God is supreme and His ways are perfect. Job said to God: "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know'" (Job 42:2-3).

Dr. Archibald Hart says, "This is where I think Christian believers have the edge when it comes to dealing with depression because God gives us a framework in which we can put all our losses. The apostle Paul writes in Philippians about counting all things as loss for the excellency of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

When you are able to look at a loss from the perspective of Christ, you will begin to experience the release of that loss.

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. . . . I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead" (Philippians 3:8, 10-11).