Bildad is absolutely wrong in attributing Job’s suffering to hypocrisy, but this is what we do in a depressed state. We argue against ourselves in self-recrimination. We can’t get out of it; it seems as if we almost want to be in it. This is not a description of every sinner, but Bildad is describing Job’s case. The person has such a hunger for misery that it very actively steals his strength. He is saying, I will describe to you from our best poetry the case of a man who God is against. He quotes the poetry of the time and it applies exactly to Job. That doesn’t mean he is right in Job’s case, but the depressed person rehearses complaints, terror, thoughts of self-destruction, suspicion of all, and their poor family does not know what to do with him.
Depression can be induced by our wrong conduct, but we have to say that with care, because the last thing another should think is that it must be that. In fact, if someone is depressed severely and often, then we can regard it as an illness to be treated by the doctor and the pastor. Those who suffer most from it must consider it part of their nature. But we are thinking of more transient depressions. Some depressions come by mishandling grief. Some are caused by spoiling in youth, since parents can over-love a child. They can put so much protection around the child, emotionally, in their teens that later in life the adult cannot cope. (Others can cause trouble by ignoring child; this is more of a father’s problem.) There is nothing more wonderful than a mother’s love, but we will have to face knocks and we need to be toughened a little. Spoiling was perhaps a factor in Job’s life. He seems to be saying, in his past life he had nothing but days of plenty, and people waited on him hand and foot. When fortunes go down, those who have been pampered don’t know how to cope. Self-pampering is seen as if it were a human right.
Then again, depression can arise from sheer exhaustion of contention. We can’t get our own way. Job was angry because he was being falsely maligned. How would he prove his innocence? He got more distressed about it. We want to have our way and win the point, and we can’t. Why am I miserable? Because I couldn’t get my own way last week.
It may be caused by grief, shock. A bad conscience doesn’t help. David said, ‘I shall one day perish.’ I wake up in cold sweats, thinking of all jobs I am behind on; I experience terrors of the night. Some feel better in morning, some don’t. We have to summon our faith. We have to learn we cannot trust our own natural conclusions. In our depression we always focus on ourselves. All goes wrong for me. All gets focused on us and we become the centre stage.