Standing before the Roman proconsul, Polycarp knew the end was near. The skilled Roman official methodically questioned him and repeatedly demanded that Polycarp worship a pagan image. Each time he refused. The bloodthirsty crowd filling the amphitheater jeered the Christian bishop. Changing tactics, the proconsul encouraged Polycarp to persuade the people. Polycarp felt no compulsion to defend himself before such a hostile crowd. To the proconsul, however, Polycarp responded differently. “We have been taught,” he said (alluding to Romans 13:1), “to pay proper respect to rulers and authorities appointed by God, as long as it does us no harm.”1 While Polycarp held fast to his convictions, the words of the apostle compelled him to respect those in political authority.

This episode, recounted in the early Christian text The Martyrdom of Polycarp, captures the dramatic social pressures the early church endured. In some ways, the episode also reminds us of some of the pressures Christians face today. In his work The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman diagnoses the ills that afflict our society, and observes the resonances between the ancient and postmodern worlds. “The second­-century world is, in a sense, our world,” he writes.2 In spite of all our seeming progress, are we returning to the days when pagans wielded social and political power against the church?

Wisdom from the Fathers

If our modern world resembles the ancient one, perhaps we could glean some wisdom from the ways the early church navigated these murky waters. As Polycarp testifies, the Scriptures were essential to the early Christian apologetic. Passages such as Romans 13:1 and Matthew 22:21, alongside the examples of Old Testament figures such as Joseph and Daniel, guided the church’s vision for engaging the unbelieving world.

Of all the texts used by these early Christians, 1 Peter 2:16–17 clusters key themes of their public and political theologies. “Live as people who are free,” Peter writes, “not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” Peter knew the faithful were suffering under the weight of societal pressures, but he still admonishes them to “live as people who are free.” While freedom certainly entails release from bondage to sin and death, it also means freedom from the fear of any social or political power. There is no sense of retreat or capitulation in Peter’s words. He expects that the church will embed itself in the fabric of its social context and live freely “as servants of God.”

“Cultural engagement begins with the fear of God.”

The joy of living freely, Peter continues, is found in a fourfold sense of Christian obedience: fear God, honor the emperor, love the church, honor all people. In four short phrases, Peter compresses a vision for engaging society that reverberates through the writings of the early church as they navigated a pagan world.

FEAR GOD

As an aspect of Christian wisdom, cultural engagement begins with the fear of God.3 I take this as a general phrase describing a firm conviction in the nature and work of God and the wisdom of God required for Christian living (see Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; Psalm 111:10). The early Christians formulated these convictions in a doctrinal summary, often called the “rule of faith,” that they confessed at baptism. Once they emerged from the baptismal waters, the rule of faith described the theological framework that guided their spiritual lives.

Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, begins his summary of the rule by saying, “God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the Creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith.”4 The second and third points confess Christ and the Holy Spirit, a developed Trinitarian vision of God. This doctrinal summary informed every feature of their doctrine and practice, and fortified a theological and moral dividing line from the inherited cultural ideologies.

This means that the first step of Christian engagement is discipleship. The church’s necessary focus is on training members, helping them to cultivate a sincere commitment to Christ and Christian doctrine. Only when they deeply imbibed the church’s faith could early Christians defend against intellectual challenges, endure social pressures, and even face martyrdom. Eventually their commitment to the teachings of the Scriptures prevailed. The early church succeeded, first and foremost, because the “central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations.”5

HONOR THE EMPEROR

While the fear of the Lord was the first step, the early church affirmed the proper place of political power. Just as Peter encourages the faithful to “honor the emperor,” the early church respected those in political authority, even when they oppressed the church (see Romans 13:1–7; Proverbs 24:21).

Early Christian theologians well knew that political power was meant to curb sin and establish order, even though it could be abused. Alluding to Romans 13:4–6 and related passages, Irenaeus observes that “earthly rule” has been “appointed by God for the benefit of nations, and not by the devil, who is never at rest at all, nay, who does not love to see even nations conducting themselves after a quiet manner.”6 Not all civil leaders are virtuous and, in the Lord’s providence, people experience different types of political governance. Some rulers “are given for the correction and the benefit of their subjects, and for the preservation of justice; but others, for the purposes of fear and punishment and rebuke.”7

Based on the doctrine of divine providence and transcendence, Tertullian made the bold claim that the emperor “is more ours than yours [the pagans], for our God has appointed him.”8 He also claimed that Christians pray for political stability, saying, “For all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest.”9 Though not afraid to criticize the emperor (or any other political figure) for neglecting his duties, Christians respected the place of civil authority.

LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD

Not only did early Christians fear God and honor the emperor, but they also loved the church (Romans 12:10; Hebrews 13:1). Christians in the ancient world, as today, recognized that laws and political structures cannot make people truly virtuous; that remains the work of the Spirit in the church. Political structures can help facilitate that work and provide environments that promote virtuous living. But politics will not save us or make us holy.

“Laws and political structures cannot make people virtuous; that remains the work of the Spirit in the church.”

While the church — either in the ancient world or today — is not perfect, early Christians argued that “what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.”10 Even though the people of God are persecuted, ironically the Christians “hold the world together.”11 The early Christian community did not see the church as just another voluntary organization or social gathering but as the locus of God’s redemptive activity. From their vantage point, God is at work in the church, and the nations enjoy the blessings. The Christians, the early apologist Aristides writes,

love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother.12

The love among the church is a living testimony of the potential for human flourishing found in the gospel.

HONOR EVERYONE

Finally, while the early church feared God, honored the emperor, and loved the church, they also recognized that Scripture called them to honor all people (Romans 13:7; 1 Peter 2:17). Christians “are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe,” writes the author of the Epistle of Diognetus.13 Instead, “following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life.”14 Early Christians affirmed that all people are created in the image of God and worthy of respect, regardless of social standing. “We are the same to emperors as to our ordinary neighbors,” Tertullian writes.15

The early church pursued holiness and modesty, and in so doing hoped to persuade some. Justin Martyr, reflecting on the way the gospel transformed lives, writes that Christians “pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.”16 Now with renewed vigor and resourcefulness, we need people of faith living with this kind of vision for society: the living testimony of a faithful, virtuous, loving community that honors all people.

We Have Been Here Before

We could say much more about the wisdom of the early Christian approach to living in an unbelieving world. The words of 1 Peter 2:17 and the example of the early church provide a helpful framework to begin thinking through this complex topic. In one sense, the example of the early church may be comforting. We have been here before. The church has survived and even thrived in times like these.

But then again, these days are different. Modern paganism (in the words of T.S. Eliot) is still intermingled with the vestiges of a Christian past. Our social and religious institutions, organizations, and traditions are in transition, tangled in the messiness of losing the Christian mores that informed them. By looking to the early church, we see a vison that resonates with Peter’s exhortation. It begins with fearing God, honoring the emperor, loving the church, and honoring all people. Like Polycarp before the proconsul and the jeering crowd, it won’t convince everyone. Nevertheless, like Polycarp, we walk in faith, and live as people who are free.

ABSTRACT: The “Five Points of Magnetism” articulated by the twentieth-century missionary theologian J.H. Bavinck serve as a grid for understanding human cultures in every age. Formed in the image of God, humans necessarily ask the same basic questions about who they are and how they fulfill their place in the world. The gospel of Christ answers those questions and fulfills every longing. Learning to recognize these questions can help pastors serve their people in preaching and counseling, as well as empower them to offer a compelling witness to the world.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Dan Strange (PhD, University of Bristol), director of Crosslands Forum and the vice president of The Southgate Fellowship, to recover the “Five Magnetic Points” of missionary theologian J.H. Bavinck as a foundation for the church to engage with culture in a compelling manner.

If you knew me, you would know that I have not been gifted with the body of a climber. However, a few years ago I became somewhat obsessed with the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, which captures Alex Honnold’s breathtaking ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park: 2,900 feet (884 meters) in 3 hours and 56 minutes without any ropes or safety aids. In parts of the climb, the rock face appears so vertical and smooth that it seems impossible for Honnold to get a grip (could he really be Spiderman?). On closer inspection, though, we discover indentations, nubs, and abrasions, however small, that Honnold uses creatively, not to mention with great effort and patience, to get traction and continue his journey to the top.

Engaging late-modern culture, and indeed any culture, in terms of our pastoring, preaching, and persuasion can seem as if we’re trying to climb a sheet of glass. We may not like to admit it, but we often struggle to get traction, to understand and connect with people where they really are — their hopes, dreams, and fears. It can feel as if we’re losing our grip and slipping down. How do we get traction given such pervasive uninterest and even antagonism?

As evangelical Christians, however, getting traction is not our only concern, and this is where my Free Solo illustration breaks down. Alex Honnold is not to be our example. There’s a tragic montage in Free Solo that shows how many of Alex’s friends in the free-solo climbing community have fallen to their deaths. Free soloing is absolute madness. Yes, we want to get traction, but we also know we need to be tethered. Our ministry, in all its facets, if it is to be truly life-giving, must be tethered to Christ and his word. This is where we find not only safety and security, but also sight. Far from being restricting, such tethering gives us confidence, freedom, and imagination to get traction in whatever cultural context the Lord has placed us because we learn from God’s word that there is always a point of contact to confront and call our culture to come to Christ.

Seeing Culture Through Scripture

What I’ve said so far is nothing original. The swirl and interplay between our confession and our context — and to which I would add our character — are perennial issues in theology and missiology that can discombobulate and paralyze. Which theory of “contextualization” can we understand, let alone utilize? How do we have the time and energy to keep up with the constant shape-shifting of cultural trends and artifacts? Do all pastors today need PhDs in the sociology of religion and an intricate theory of secularization?

To aid our progress, I have found the Dutch Reformed missiologist J.H. Bavinck (1895–1974), the nephew of Herman Bavinck, to be an expert guide in helping us gain traction while remaining securely tethered: exegeting culture through the exegesis of Scripture.1 In this essay, I outline Bavinck’s theological anthropology in his understanding of humanity’s religious consciousness, unpacked in what he calls the “magnetic points,” which are subversively fulfilled in Jesus Christ. I then apply this to our pastoring, preaching, and persuasion.

The ‘Perilous Exchange’

To unpack what it means for humanity to be religiously conscious, Bavinck focuses his attention on Romans 1:18–32. In the cosmic game of hide-and-seek, Bavinck says, God is not the one hiding. He has made himself known in everything he has created, with the climax of creation being his image bearers. This revealing is dynamic, personal, and relational. More than most commentators on this seminal passage, Bavinck unpacks the revelation of God’s “invisible qualities” (Romans 1:20 NIV). God’s “eternal power” notes our creaturely dependence on our Creator.2 His “divine nature” recognizes our personal accountability to a Someone — the Someone — rather than a “something” or an “It.”3 Dependence and accountability are hardwired into human beings (something to which we’ll shortly return).

What do we do with this personal knowledge? In the game played out since Eden, we are the ones who try to hide. We suppress the truth and try to drown it, and with that choice comes a “perilous exchange”4 where we idolatrously substitute all kinds of created things for the uncreated God in the foolish attempt to extricate “eternal power” and “divine nature” from them.

This suppression and substitution of revealed truth can be hard to understand, but Bavinck offers a memorable illustration in the metaphor of a dream, or better still, a nightmare. In a nightmare, the phenomena we experience in reality during the day are ripped out of their original contexts and become grotesque — twisted and distorted new ideas and fantasies. This whole process makes up what Bavinck calls humanity’s universal “religious consciousness.” We are God’s image bearers built for worship, and yet we have rebelled against our Creator. We know God and so are without excuse, but we are also ignorant of him. We are running to him and away from him at the same time. This is the dignity and depravity of our humanity.

This messy mix is what I believe Paul is getting at in Acts 17 when he calls the Athenians “very religious” and points to their unknown god. He’s not commending their idolatry (he’s been deeply distressed, notes their ignorance, and will call them to repentance), but he starts where they are, recognizing their need for worship as a point of contact (or better, attack).

Five Magnetic Points

Bavinck’s experience on the mission field in Indonesia and then back in a theological seminary in the Netherlands led him to unpack this religious consciousness. Yes, different religions and worldviews are vastly different, and yet, he writes,

There seems to be a kind of framework within which human religions need to operate. There appear to be definite points of contact around which all kinds of ideas crystallize. There seem to be quite vague feelings — one might better call them direction signals that have been actively brooding everywhere. . . . Perhaps this can be expressed thus: there seem to be definite magnetic points that time and again irresistibly compel human religious thought. Human beings cannot escape their power but must provide an answer to those basic questions posed to them.5

These “magnetic points,” fashioned from our distortions of God’s “eternal power” and “divine nature” (which stress our creaturely accountability), can manifest themselves in a multitude of mutations, but “since they are rooted in our existence, they are stronger than ourselves, and somehow we must come to grips with them.”6 Even if these points are never consciously articulated, human beings still answer them by “their entire conduct” and “attitude to life”: their “whole way of living already implies an answer, and is an answer.”7 These are the itches that we have to scratch, even if they just lead to more irritation.

Bavinck notes that there are five of these magnetic points, each offering a perspective on the one religious consciousness. The following is my own summary of them.8

1. Totality: Is there a way to connect?

All humans have an innate sense of totality and connection that shapes our identity. On the one hand, we often feel so small and insignificant, just specks in the vast universe with no value or worth, and treated as such. Any yet, when we connect with something or someone(s) bigger, we find significance through belonging and enjoy communal awareness. Therefore, we crave connection, often feel abandoned after we’ve experienced it, and crave for it again and again.

2. Norm: Is there a way to live?

We have a vague sense there are rules to be obeyed. People recognize and accept moral standards and codes that come from outside them and to which they must adhere. This knowledge brings with it a sense of responsibility to live up to those norms. Even groups that seek to be countercultural have their own set of rules of nonconformity.

3. Deliverance: Is there a way out?

We know something is wrong with the world. There is finitude, brokenness, and wrongdoing, and the problems of suffering and death consistently confront us. We mourn for some kind of paradise lost and long for deliverance from these evils, craving redemption. And yet, we can’t agree on what our ultimate problem is, let alone whether there is a solution that would deliver us.

4. Destiny: Is there a way we control?

Although we know ourselves to be active players in the world, we have a nagging feeling that we are also passive participants in somebody else’s world. We both lead and undergo our lives. Sometimes we feel confident that we are masters of our destiny with agency and power to determine reality. Other times we feel restricted and trapped with no agency, like pawns in a cosmic game of chess or puppets on a string. We’re victims. We oscillate between these two moods, and cannot settle and find cognitive or existential rest.

5. Higher Power: Is there a way beyond?

This is the meta-magnetic point on which all the others converge. Humans perceive that behind all reality, beyond the veil, stands a great reality. The deeper we look to find connection, discover the norm, search for deliverance, and relate to our destiny, the more we come to the question of a higher power. But what is it? Who is it?

These, then, are the magnetic points that make up our religious consciousness, all formed from the anthropological clay of Romans 1 and the broader theological anthropology of Scripture. In Bavinck’s life and ministry, the phenomena before him (with which he used this framework) were what we might call recognized religious traditions and worldviews. And such analysis in cross-cultural settings is as relevant then as it is now.

However, I believe this anthropological framework, these five magnetic points, are just as relevant in our late-modern, post-Christian Western context. These magnetic points can be the lens through which we start to read our culture. They can help us connect with those around us who are scratching their “very religious” itches.9 They can be the magnetic poles we use to orient wandering souls to True North.

One Magnetic Person

Using this framework enables us to connect and confront our culture with the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, all the magnetic points are yes and amen. He is where the traction lies. The gospel of Christ confronts and subverts idolatrous religious consciousness and its historical manifestations, but it also provides its fulfillment. As we observe in 1 Corinthians 1, Christ crucified confronts all idolatrous cultural stories (1 Corinthians 1:20–25). It’s foolish and scandalous to Jews (who look for power) and to Greeks (who look for wisdom). And yet, to those who are being saved, Jesus is the power and is the wisdom that completes these stories (and the myriad of other stories we tell).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the subversive fulfillment of the magnetic points. He is the magnetic Person that we present to people. In the cosmic game of hide-and-seek, where God is not hiding but we, Jesus, the light of the world, pierces the darkness. He is the greatest seeker who comes to seek and save the lost. (I can only present the barest pencil outline here. I will leave it to you to color in these points with the boldest and richest gospel colors.)

First, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of totality (the way to connect). The beautiful doctrine of the image of God affirms both our insignificance (we are not God) and our significance (we are images of God). We are Adam — ones “from the earth” — and so our need for connection is natural. And yet, we are disconnected: from ourselves, each other, the creation, and (most of all) the Creator, against whom we have rebelled. Being connected to this world means being connected to a world that is under judgment and is perishing.

Jesus, the Second Adam, offers a new kingdom into which we enter by repentance and faith. Entering this kingdom requires death and sacrifice but not a loss of self in terms of individuality and responsibility. Rather, it brings rebirth and resurrection, communion with God in our union with Christ and community in the body of Christ, the church.10

Second, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of the norm (the way to live). Jesus offers himself as both the standard and the Savior. In following Jesus, people come to see that God’s unchanging holy law is for our flourishing. Yet, he offers compassion to the outcast and marginalized, and he hates religious hypocrisy.

Third, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of deliverance (the way out). The war between ourselves, within ourselves, and with our environment has a root cause: our enmity with God. We face his righteous wrath and an eternity in hell. Deliverance can be found only through one Mediator, the God-man Jesus Christ — and through him alone. In him there is not only escape but restoration and eternal blessing.

Fourth, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of destiny (the way of control). Our world is not governed by blind fate or malevolent forces but by a sovereign God who is Lord over all creation, both natural and supernatural. This sovereignty does not take away human freedom but is its precondition. Christian destiny is liberating and joyful.

Finally, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of the higher power (the way beyond). We do not worship a non-Absolute deity or an impersonal force, but a Someone, maximally Absolute and maximally Personal, who is both transcendent and immanent, Judge and Savior. We worship One who has reached down to us in grace, the Word made flesh.

Many Magnetic People

Now that we have considered the five magnetic points and the one magnetic person, Jesus Christ, how might we utilize this framework in our ministry and mission?

Pastor Toward the Magnetic Person

First, in our pastoring. Our evangelism and apologetics flow from our discipleship. In 1883, Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on John 12:32 titled “The Marvelous Magnet.” He said,

All the magnetism comes from the first place from which it started, and when it ceases at the fountainhead there is an end of it altogether. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the great attractive magnet, and all must begin and end with Him. . . . Thus from one to another the mystic influence proceeds, but the whole of the force abides in Jesus. More and more the kingdom grows, “ever mighty to prevail,” but all the growing and the prevailing come out of Him. So it is that Jesus works — first by Himself, and then by all who are in Him. May the Lord make us all magnets for Himself.11

A teacher wrote to me recently about this quotation and gave me a physics lesson. Some materials can become magnetic when placed in a magnetic field, as they are made up of lots of regions called “domains,” which are essentially “mini-magnets.” When not in the magnetic field, they align randomly and cancel each other out so that there is no overall magnetic field. But in the presence of an external magnetic field, these domains align so that, instead of canceling each other out, their strengths combine to make the material magnetic.

Our hearts are like the unmagnetized material: we are fragmented. Our inner desires, commitments, loves, emotions, and beliefs are attracted by all sorts of created things. We have divided hearts (Psalm 86:11). What we need is to be close to Christ. As we behold his glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), spending time in his magnetic field, all our fragmented “mini-magnets” become attracted to him and start to align. He makes us magnetic.

We are either being formed by Christ or being deformed by something or someone else. If we are not being drawn to Christ, we are being drawn away by something else. The magnetic points serve as a helpful diagnostic tool as we pastor ourselves and those in our care. Where are our hearts seeking connections, norms, deliverances, destinies, and higher powers that are not in Christ?

The question then becomes, How are we to stay properly magnetized? The extraordinarily ordinary answer is, of course, by loving Jesus and loving his body, the church, through which the Holy Spirit re-magnetizes us each week, and sends us out on mission and into our God-given vocations. May the Lord make us all magnets for himself!

Preach with the Magnetic Points

Second, in our preparation for preaching. To connect every aspect of their sermons to the lives of the people in their churches, the Puritans used preaching grids that helped map out particular sermon applications. The magnetic points can function in a similar fashion, acting as a bridge to connect our preaching to the lives and concerns of our listeners. Because they are a way of understanding the Bible’s own anthropology, using them as an application grid is not an artificial imposition on the text. Because they are part of who we are, we can’t avoid touching on these themes.

Preachers don’t have to explain the magnetic points in their sermons. Like the scaffold in a building project, such a grid is temporary and won’t be on display in the final product. But the magnetic points do provide a useful grid as we aim to present Christ in our preaching as the fulfillment of our deepest longings.

Persuade with Magnetic Spaces

Third, in our persuasion. As I’ve already noted, the magnetic points provide a helpful framework for connecting with the non-Christians God has placed in our lives in a natural but intentional way.12 Sometimes this occurs in more direct and immediate evangelistic engagement. However, given our increasingly post-Christian culture — which is frantic, fractured, and polarized — civil dialogue and conversation is becoming more difficult. How do we even create opportunities to speak of Christ where people will genuinely listen and engage? Increasingly, some relationships call for a longer “run up.”

Among many steps churches could take, we could consider creating “magnetic spaces,” places where people can pause in the journey of life, gaining some relief from the storm. Like the ancient hospiciums, which before the nineteenth century were not places for the dying but rest houses for travelers, such spaces could provide relief from the storms of life and opportunities to reflect on the many issues people face. A magnetic space could be a book or film club, a regular meeting of parents or businessmen, a sports ministry, a mental-health discussion group, or more.

It should be noted that such magnetic spaces would not be guilty of what can be called bait-and-switch tactics. While each magnetic space is built by a local church, every space would be happily self-contained with an integrity of purpose in serving the community (for example, to produce better leaders, parents, or mental health) and in fostering and promoting civility. We would love all citizens in our hostile and fractious culture to be learning a convicted civility that combines a civil outlook with a passionate intensity, and where there is improved self-understanding, awareness, and listening. We might call this pre-pre-evangelism.

However, we need to note that helping people think through issues of life through the magnetic points serves the gospel by helping people uncover their own ultimate heart commitments. As Isaiah says in his great satire of idolatry, the problem with the idolater is that “no one stops to think” (Isaiah 44:18–19 NIV). Magnetic spaces would be places to get people to stop and think about their commitments and the objects of their worship. By God’s Spirit, they may begin to see the futility of lives not built on Christ, the only one who can give us connection, norm, deliverance, and destiny.

In other words, conversational difference creates the space and the platform for conversional difference. We might call this pre-evangelism. At this point, the churches that built the spaces are open and welcoming for those who want to hear more about Christ being the subversive fulfillment of their idolatrous longings.

Traction and Tethering

Tackling pastoring, preaching, and persuasion in our late-modern culture can seem as daunting, dizzying, and arduous as one of Alex Honnold’s vertiginous climbs. However, the magnetic points can provide both the traction and the tethering we need to make it to the top. Yes, such climbing requires creativity, imagination, and stamina, but we aren’t climbing solo. We have God’s Spirit with us, and we trust what God’s word says about the religious nature of all human beings, our security as Christian disciples, and the magnetism of the Lord Jesus Christ. What an exciting adventure to be part of.

Being admitted to the mental hospital didn’t feel like God’s mercy to me. It seemed more like a cruelty. I wanted to be “depression-free.” I thought that was a God-honoring goal to strive toward. With a household to run and a family to care for, there seemed no time to be downcast. I was tired of being sidelined by sadness.

But I was worn by conflicts and child-rearing challenges. Though I had tried so hard for so long to “keep calm and carry on,” the continual striving to be emotionally stable seemed futile. I would feel “fine” only for a time. Then I would crash.

Perhaps the worst sensation of all was the perceived absence of the Lord I loved. I couldn’t reconcile my sorrows with his apparent indifference. It seemed as if he had “forgotten to be gracious” to me — as if “in anger” he had “shut up his compassion” (Psalm 77:9). Surely God saw how hard I’d been trying and knew how long I had been crying. So why let me sit in a darkness that I’d been striving for years to stay out of? I felt so ashamed of my struggles. I felt like a God-forsaken failure.

It wasn’t until I was hospitalized that God let me hear how cruel my self-talk had become. I was so determined to be free from depression that the restless pursuit of that goal became my motive for living. In desperation, my hope shifted off of Christ and onto a change I couldn’t produce on my own. So, whenever hurt and heartbreak left me feeling overwhelmed again — whenever I couldn’t “snap out” of my miserable mood — I felt like an embarrassment of a believer. I despaired of life itself.

Unbeknownst to me — yet fully known to God — desperation had driven me away from his grace (Galatians 3:3; 5:4).

Unexpected Rescue

Understandably, what I wanted most in that season of motherhood was deliverance. But unexpectedly, God rescued me instead from my merciless mindset. He already knew I had no righteousness of my own to boast in; I was the one who had trouble accepting that fact. I couldn’t even leave the locked hall I was on, let alone escape the prison of darkness. I viewed my experience of depression as not only undesirable, but unforgivable.

God saw how I condemned myself. I had been treating my Savior’s blood as an incomplete covering for the dark night of the soul, as if I should have been able to suffer my sorrows without difficulty — suffer them perfectly.

That week in the ward, I came to see God’s compassion toward me more clearly, and not because he ordained a miraculous change in my circumstances. Rather, he showed me it wasn’t his voice that was roaring with condemnation. His words were, “Come to me,” not “Get over it”; “Take my rest,” not “Try harder” (Matthew 11:28). He was inviting me to take up a yoke I could manage in my weary condition — a burden far lighter than I had been forcing myself to carry.

Jesus wasn’t the one insisting that I pull myself out of the pit. He was the one calling me to take refuge in him as he walked me through the dark.

God Not Hurried

As I learned after years of fighting against despondency, what we count as God’s slowness or indifference is actually his patience toward us as he works redemptively in our lives (2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 1:16). Yes, there are times when a fix-it-fast approach is an appropriate response to the problem at hand. But God’s methods for mending the hearts and reviving the spirits of his people are often less hurried. While the Great Physician can be trusted to do this restorative work according to his promise, he does so at a pace that seems good to him and suits his eternal purposes.

Despite our sense of urgency, there are no emergencies to him who holds our times in his hands (Psalm 31:15).

God’s unhurried pace can be a challenging reality for us to grasp, particularly in depression. When God’s help seems unbearably slow, it can appear as though he’s withholding it altogether. And when we fear he has shut up his compassion and forgotten to be gracious toward us, we may think we must climb out of the pit of despair on our own. Hurt by what seems like a lack of sympathy, we may groan to God as Job in his angst: “You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me” (Job 30:21).

Feeling God-forsaken, we may double down on our efforts to be strong and steady in ourselves. Perhaps we’re even able to feel “fine” or “better” for a period of time. But ultimately, self-reliance proves itself unreliable. We crash and despair of life itself. We need outside help. We need rescue.

We need mercy.

Timely, Tender Mercy

I confess — I felt as if God had turned cruel to me in that sorrowful season of motherhood. But in the hospital, the Spirit helped me to reinterpret God’s dealings with me. Through his word, I was reminded that the Lord is never surprised by his people’s desperation. My Maker knew how helpless I’d feel on dark days before a single one of them came to pass (Psalm 139:16). He foresaw every hardship, conflict, grief, and pain I would endure. He knew every one of the ways I would sin in word, thought, and deed.

He knew I would need help, rescue, mercy.

Then the Spirit testified to God’s nature — that he loves to comfort (not condemn) the downcast (2 Corinthians 7:6). That he has pity on his weak and needy children (Psalm 72:13). That for the sake of his holy name, the Father of mercies sent his Son to suffer my sorrows perfectly. According to his “tender mercy” (Luke 1:78), the Lord stepped into my darkness to do what I could not.

“For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). At the perfect time, Jesus saved me from experiencing eternal darkness (Romans 5:6). He patiently worked himself to death to deliver me from perpetual sorrow. To see Jesus at the apex of his anguish is to perceive his mercy more clearly in my own.

Better Motive

According to God’s merciful plan, Jesus was raised to life from the deepest darkness of all. That meant underneath my pit of despair were the everlasting arms (Deuteronomy 33:27). And those strong and steady arms held forth the hands that knit me together — hands that were not embarrassed to be engraved with my name (Isaiah 49:16). These palms were pierced for me so I could have hope in my miserable-yet-momentary affliction (2 Corinthians 4:17). What more work was there for me to do but rest myself in them?

I still had the gospel to share and Christ’s love to give. There was no better motive to keep carrying on when the darkness wouldn’t lift.

The week I’d spent in the mental hospital didn’t feel like mercy to me at the time, but the kindness God gave me there led my heart to peace and repentance (Romans 2:4). I didn’t have to be depression-free before I could live for the glory of God; Christ’s sinless life and sacrifice freed me from the unbearable burden to be perfect in myself. Since Jesus obeyed God’s will unto death, I could die to my desire for quick relief and live for walking by faith, one small step at a time.

I couldn’t feel better fast, but I could entrust myself “to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Peter 4:19). I could learn to rest in Christ as long as the darkness lasts.