A famous preacher filled stadiums for 20 years.
Saved thousands of souls. Booked 2 years out. Churches fought over his calendar like relatives over a dead man's will.
Then they found his body under the oak tree.
🧵
Saved thousands of souls. Booked 2 years out. Churches fought over his calendar like relatives over a dead man's will.
Then they found his body under the oak tree.
🧵
This man could pack revival tents until the walls bulged.
Made altar calls look like Black Friday at Walmart - people pushing forward, desperate to reach the front before the moment passed.
His schedule: 3 services a day, 7 days a week when the Spirit moved.
Made altar calls look like Black Friday at Walmart - people pushing forward, desperate to reach the front before the moment passed.
His schedule: 3 services a day, 7 days a week when the Spirit moved.
He'd just finished a 3-week tour.
200 souls genuinely saved. Not the "raise your hand" kind. The real kind - where grown men ugly-cried and prostitutes flushed pills down church toilets.
His church threw him a hero's welcome. Balloons. His wife's famous potato salad.
200 souls genuinely saved. Not the "raise your hand" kind. The real kind - where grown men ugly-cried and prostitutes flushed pills down church toilets.
His church threw him a hero's welcome. Balloons. His wife's famous potato salad.
He kissed his wife. Shook hands with deacons who'd mortgaged their homes for the new sanctuary.
Smiled at the congregation who loved him more than blood - people who named their kids after him, kept his picture next to their grandchildren.
Then he walked to the backyard.
Smiled at the congregation who loved him more than blood - people who named their kids after him, kept his picture next to their grandchildren.
Then he walked to the backyard.
Past the garden his wife tended like a medieval monk.
Past the tomatoes heavy on the vine.
To the old oak tree where his kids' swing hung - frayed rope from years of pushing his daughters toward heaven while they squealed "Higher, Daddy, higher!"
They found him there.
Past the tomatoes heavy on the vine.
To the old oak tree where his kids' swing hung - frayed rope from years of pushing his daughters toward heaven while they squealed "Higher, Daddy, higher!"
They found him there.
The note in his pocket had one line:
"I'm tired of pretending I'm not drowning."
Here's what killed that preacher. It wasn't the rope.
It was the lie that depression is sin.
"I'm tired of pretending I'm not drowning."
Here's what killed that preacher. It wasn't the rope.
It was the lie that depression is sin.
The modern church treats depression like leprosy.
Something shameful that happens to the faithless ones. The ones with unconfessed sin or demons.
We've created a Christianity where admitting you want to die is worse than actually dying.
Something shameful that happens to the faithless ones. The ones with unconfessed sin or demons.
We've created a Christianity where admitting you want to die is worse than actually dying.
I've sat in services where preachers proclaimed depression is just selfishness in disguise.
"If you're truly saved, you'll have joy down in your heart."
Where? Down in the heart of the preacher hanging from the oak tree?
"If you're truly saved, you'll have joy down in your heart."
Where? Down in the heart of the preacher hanging from the oak tree?
You want Biblical truth?
David - the giant killer, "man after God's own heart" - wrote this:
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? I am as a man that hath no strength."
That's not victory language. That's a man talking to his soul like a stranger.
David - the giant killer, "man after God's own heart" - wrote this:
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? I am as a man that hath no strength."
That's not victory language. That's a man talking to his soul like a stranger.
Psalm 88: "My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave."
David wasn't writing praise choruses. He was documenting what it feels like when your soul becomes a graveyard and every thought is a funeral.
Was David sinning? Or just human?
David wasn't writing praise choruses. He was documenting what it feels like when your soul becomes a graveyard and every thought is a funeral.
Was David sinning? Or just human?
Jesus - the sinless Son of God - was "exceeding sorrowful unto death" in Gethsemane.
Depression so heavy blood vessels burst. He sweated blood.
"Jesus wept."
Was the Son of God failing some spiritual test? Or showing us darkness isn't sin?
Depression so heavy blood vessels burst. He sweated blood.
"Jesus wept."
Was the Son of God failing some spiritual test? Or showing us darkness isn't sin?
When you tell depressed believers their illness is spiritual failure, you become Job's friends.
Those "helpful" brothers who explained why Job was suffering.
God called them fools.
Sometimes darkness isn't demonic. Sometimes it's just human.
Those "helpful" brothers who explained why Job was suffering.
God called them fools.
Sometimes darkness isn't demonic. Sometimes it's just human.
Your depression doesn't disqualify you from the kingdom.
It qualifies you for your calling.
You can't lead people through valleys you've never walked. Can't bind wounds you've never bled from. Can't speak life to the dying if you've never tasted death.
It qualifies you for your calling.
You can't lead people through valleys you've never walked. Can't bind wounds you've never bled from. Can't speak life to the dying if you've never tasted death.
That preacher's depression wasn't his sin.
His silence was his prison.
The lie that he had to be perfect killed him. The church taught him admitting he was drowning was worse than actually drowning.
Stop letting them tell you otherwise.
His silence was his prison.
The lie that he had to be perfect killed him. The church taught him admitting he was drowning was worse than actually drowning.
Stop letting them tell you otherwise.
But here's what I haven't told you yet...
That preacher left more than a suicide note. He left a journal. 67 pages documenting King David's actual battle plan for depression.
The system the modern church buried under prosperity gospel.
🧵 THREAD CONTINUES...
That preacher left more than a suicide note. He left a journal. 67 pages documenting King David's actual battle plan for depression.
The system the modern church buried under prosperity gospel.
🧵 THREAD CONTINUES...
In my new book "Overcoming Mental Torment," I reveal:
• David's uncensored warfare system for depression
• The 10 Psalms churches skip (too dark to preach)
• Why your darkness might be your calling
• The war plan for Christian warriors
Preorder:
Stop dying in silence. Start winning the war.buy.stripe.com/7sY28s2kMfl7ee…
• David's uncensored warfare system for depression
• The 10 Psalms churches skip (too dark to preach)
• Why your darkness might be your calling
• The war plan for Christian warriors
Preorder:
Stop dying in silence. Start winning the war.buy.stripe.com/7sY28s2kMfl7ee…
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