Thoughtful and prayerful study of depression should naturally and automatically increase our sympathy for those who suffer from it. By sympathy, I mean an ability to communicate that we truly understand the problem and the symptoms, that we are deeply concerned, and that we will do all that we can to help. In many cases such sympathy can have a powerful therapeutic effect on the sufferer. The lack of it can only multiply the pain and deepen the darkness. Consider the following quote from Russell Hampton, who suffered from depression:


It will greatly help you to sympathize if you always remember that you could just as easily be in the same position, suffering the same sorrow (1 Cor. 4:7). If you treat depressed people with impatient contempt, you may, like many others before you, have to learn sympathy the hard way.

Edited extract from Christians get depressed too. Available at RHB and Ligonier. Kindle version here