Louie Giglio - Breathing Out The Weight of Depression
If you have scripture today, we're gonna be looking at Ezekiel 37 and I'd love for you to open your copy of scripture if you have it. And obviously we're in this little journey of putting an x through anxiety. The title of this message might be "Breathing in the wonder of God and breathing out the weight of depression". And we see that in this text today. You might be familiar with the text. It's the story of the valley of dry bones. Has anybody felt like you've ever been in the valley of dry bones, that place where everything was brittle, and everything was cracking, and everything was dry? This is where Ezekiel, the prophet, is found. He and the people of God are in exile. They're away from their home. They're away from their place of worship but God's still stirring.
And there's a vision and it is the vision in the valley of dry bones. I wanna read the account of it beginning in verse one. Ezekiel writes, "The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord. And set me in the middle of a valley: it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, 'Son of man, can these bones live?' And I said, 'O Sovereign Lord, You alone know.'"
Now, just parenthetically that is always the right answer when God asks you a question. "And then He said to me, 'Prophesy to these bones and say to them 'Dry bones, hear the words of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin: I will put my breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.' So I prophesied as I was commanded and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sounds, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then He said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds o breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them: and they came to life and stood up as a vast army. The He said to me: 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone: We are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the sovereign Lord says: O my people, I'm gonna open your graves and bring you up from them: I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land, then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.'"
Verse six, "I will put my breath in you, and you will come to life". I think the thing that anxiety and depression wanna do is take our breath away from us. This word "breath" that we see all through this passage in Ezekiel 37 is the Hebrew word "ruach" and ruach means wind, it means breath, and it also means spirit. And it's a word attached actually to God as a name of God. In Genesis, the very first paragraph of scripture, it says in verse two, it says, "Now, the Earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep".
Now, I think when we talk about depression, anxiety, and all these things that our generation is struggling so much with, this is a good description of us. It's a description of some of the people that you know. They're formless. They're empty and darkness is over the surface of the deep. Their life is marked by these things, but in the very beginning when the creation was like this, it says in the last part of verse two, "And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters". The word "spirit" in this verse is ruach, same word, and then the word for God is "Elohim". And so, the Ruach of Elohim, Ruach, Elohim, Spirit of God. That's why it's capitalized in verse two, "Was hovering over the waters".
And then, a few verses later, we see where God formed Adam out of the dust, and so there he was completely formed but lifeless until God breathed into him the breath of life. And then, the scripture says he became a living being. It's the power of the transfer of the sovereign breath of God, the ruach of God, the wind of God, the breath of God, the spirit of God. And then, Paul writes in Acts 17:25, that "it's God Himself who gives everyone life and breath," there it is again. "And everything else". You and I have the gift of the sovereign breath of God and the breath of God is our life.
So, it's no surprise to us, right, that what the enemy wants to do in our lives is to steal away our breath, to take away that beautiful gift of God that has been put inside every one of us. He can do that ultimately, and people never come to faith in Jesus, when they take their last breath, it is their final breath. He can do that for us in life when we get distracted, and we use the breath that God has put in our lungs to glorify everything but the sovereign God who put the breath in our lungs. And the enemy can do it consistently if he can put enough weight on our chest that it smashes us and presses out of us the very holy breath of almighty God. And that's what God wants to talk to us about today, that weight of depression that pushes out of us the very breath of God.
And God wants in the midst of that to prophesy to the dry bones today in our house and say, "Breath of God come and breathe into them and bring them to life". You know, when you talk to somebody who's struggling with anxiety or having panic attacks, or anxiety attacks, or is really in the thick of a fight with depression, you hear them say a lot of times, "It just feels like I can't breathe. It feels like there's a 1000 pounds on my chest. I woke in the middle of the night and it seemed like there was an elephant sitting on top of me, and I couldn't catch my breath". We say these words because what? That's what depression is doing to us. Depression is depressing us. It is pressing down on us and pressing the very breath of God out of our lungs.
And so, today, I just wanna offer A: the word of the Lord, and I wanna prophesy to the Spirit of God today and say, "Come into us who need breath today". Because the only thing that can move the 2000 pounds, or the 5000 pounds, or whatever you're feeling, off of your chest and off of your lungs today is a breath from the Almighty God. And no matter how heavy the weight that is on you, a breath from God can move it. The Ruach of God can move that weight. How does the weight get there? Well, I think it's a toxic mix of a few things. And I'm not an expert on any of this but I have been down as most of you know in a really, really dark hole of depression, and it is a miracle, and I always say this, that I'm here today in my right mind communicating this message.
There was a season in my life where that was not an option that I could see ever happening to me. And so, though I'm not a doctor and I'm not an expert, I am a witness today to the power of almighty God. I am a witness today that what I'm saying is true. I'm a witness today that this isn't just a message that sounds good, but this is a God who's greater than whatever is weighing on you. And I think for me, and I think for a lot of us, that weight is a toxic mix, and it's a few things. I think one, it's the result of getting our eyes off of God. That's what happened to the people of God and that's why they were in exile. They had seen the miracles. They'd been led by God. They had a incredible history with God but they'd gotten their eyes off of God, and when they got their eyes off of God, everything in their lives went wrong.
And I know that underneath most of the weight that's pressing breath out of people today, the root of anxiety and depression is fear. And the antidote to fear is a view of God. The antidote to fear is to be able to see God again and to understand that God is greater than whatever it is that is pressing down on us with the weight. And that's what the Spirit of God wants to do is help us see God again. Sinclair Ferguson said it this way, "The work of the Spirit does not add information about Jesus. He, the Spirit, simply opens our eyes to see who He really is". And when the weight is on us, and the breath of God is being pressed out of us, and then all of a sudden we are crippled by anxiety, Jesus somehow has gotten so small in our view that we feel like whatever this is is way bigger than whoever He is.
And God wants to restore in us a beautiful view of God, and for some of us, the toxic mix started with we just got our eyes off of God. Another thing I think that mixes into this is that we got to the place where we were being led by our feelings. And I just wanna make sure you hear me say today, feelings are okay. We all have 'em, amen? There are times when we feel lonely. Hello? Anybody feel lonely? There are time when we feel afraid. They're times when in our lives, we feel overwhelmed. This is a feeling that we have. There are times in our lives where we feel sad. And when you feel sad and you feel lonely, or you feel overwhelmed, you shouldn't feel about that because we all have feelings. The problem comes when I let my feelings take the pen and write the narrative of my life story.
When I let the feelings take the pen and say, "I'm gonna write the headline for today. I feel sad today therefore today is gonna be a sad day". Instead of letting the spirit of God take the pen in our lives and write the headline, "I turn sadness into joy. And it might not happen in 20 minutes but it's gonna happen. It might happen by the time you go to bed tonight but it's gonna happen because I turn mourning into dancing. I give beauty for ashes. I am the breath of God, the Ruach of God. I'm the wind of God and the Spirit of God. Let me have the pen today". And it's okay to feel overwhelmed. It is not okay to be led by that feeling.
And so, somehow that gets in the toxic mix. "I've got my eyes off of God and I feel overwhelmed". That's a bad combination and that's gonna lead me probably into an anxious place. I tell you another way that we get under this weight is we neglect the simple pleasures of life. This is gonna be so great 'cause this is free. We neglect the simple pleasures of life. We are so sophisticated and so absorbed by our screens that we forgot that it's of no cost to watch the sunrise and every sunset is free. We forgot that you can actually go and walk in the grass, and that you can go out at night and stare up at the starry host. That you can go to the ocean.
I've read so many articles in the last three months about what expansive water does to restore the circuitry of our brains. And you're like, "Oh, that's great. I've been looking at pictures of the ocean on my phone". Not working. And somehow, the toxic mix of the screen and getting our eyes off God and being led by our feelings is putting weight on our lungs and depressing us, and pressing out of us the very Spirit of God, the wind of God. I'm not talking theologically like the Holy Spirit leaves and comes back, I'm just talking about the experiential power of God's Spirit in us.
Ben Stewart gave a talk at Passion camp and then at Passion, and he was talking about the younger generation, but it's true of all of us, but man, the people who've studied the young people around us and they had studied all of these various markers of them, hospitalization for self-harm, feelings of isolation, anxiety, suicide. And they look at every chart, and every chart when they put them all on top of each other had an inflection point in 2012 where they were trending along, and then they shot straight up like this. And the question was raised of course, "Well, what happened in 2012"? And someone said, "That's when we got the smartphone". No, we already had smartphone. That's when everyone was introduced to social media. And in that moment, every negative marker skyrocketed among the young people in our generation.
Now, I know, I've had many conversations with young people about social media, and about screens, and I get it. Every time there's always an immediate resistance like, "You don't understand. You grew up without, you know, a digital camera, so what do you know about anything? This is all we've ever known". And get that and I love what Ben said. He said, "It's not your fault but it is your problem". And I say that all of us today. It may not be your fault what is weighing on you, but it is your problem, and you cannot simply say, "The phone's not my fault," for the rest of your life.
At some point, you've got to accept, "The phone is my problem and I'm gonna have to return to some of the simple pleasures in life, and that means I'm actually gonna go and enjoy the sunset and not go into the sunset and get my phone in the right place on the tripod, so the whole time the sun is going down, I can get my little video thing going so I can get in the right place while the sun's till going down. Awesome. This gonna be amazing. I will become a TikTok legend over this little move right here". And then, the sun went down and you spend the next three hours editing the video. Not a simple pleasure. I'm talking about just going out to the sunset.
You're like, "Louie, we came here to hear someone teach the word not have little meditative moments about sunsets". Okay. "He leads me beside still waters". That's in the Bible. "He makes me lie down in green pastures". That's in the Bible. "He restores my soul". And we need to trade some of these high end pleasures for some of the simple pleasures in life. It's in the toxic mix. Another thing that's in the toxic mix is isolation. Anybody know what I'm talking about? That is where anxiety gets its power. And as connected as we all somehow think we are, it is amazing how isolated we can be. He raised them up and they stood up, the bones, a vast army, they stood up as a we.
I'm telling you the enemy's got some of you real focused on me. I think the other thing, the last thing in this toxic mix is that, is just being self-focused. It's just being absorbed with self-review, and self-analysis, and self. And somewhere in that toxic mix, God wants to prophesy to the dry bones today and He wants to say, "Come from the four wind Spirit of God, and breathe on them that they can live". See, this breath thing is obvious. And everything you read about anxiety and depression is gonna tell you about the power of breathing and I'll tell you why. I read this study by the American Institute of Stress.
Isn't it awesome that we have an American Institute of Stress? "Deep breathing increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system," that's what you need. You need your parasympathetic nervous system to get stimulated. "Which promotes a state of calmness. Breathing techniques help you feel connected to your body. It brings your awareness away from the worries in your head and quiets your mind". God wants you to get back in touch with your breathing. A friend of mine a while back went to one of the world renowned doctors that helps with depression, and anxiety, and all kind of mental illness, and the person's very hard to see.
And this friend of mine had seen them, and I thought, "Man, I'll probably never get to see that person, so I'm gonna just kinda co-opt on your visit, you know. Like, what did you get out of it? It can help me". And the person said, "Well, the biggest takeaway for me were some of the breathing techniques that they taught me". It's like, "You went to the world renowned expert on mental health and they gave you breathing techniques"? It's like, "Good to know. Saved me a visit. Just tell me what the techniques are". "Well, there's just deep breathing". I was like, "I know but what's like the special secret sauce"? "No, you just like... it's breathing. It's breathing".
And that's what God wants to say today. It's breathing, people. It's breathing. The ruach came. And yes, there were bones and yes, there were tendons, and yes there was skin, and they now looked like people, but they needed breath to live. And there are people in this gathering today and you got bones, and you got tendons, you have muscles, you have eyes, you have hair, but you need the breath of God to come into your lungs so you can live. And I'm telling you a breath of God today is greater than whatever is pressing down on you. They say the normal adults breathes 20,000 times a day. That's a lot of breaths. And I wonder if we could harness those and use them in the power of the Spirit to help us get in touch with the sovereignty, and the sovereign God who says, "I can speak to what is dead and cause it to live".
We breathe out, we exhale, and sometimes, it's just a little, you know, we don't even notice it. Most of the 20,000 I guess, just go by, but every now and then we do a very pronounced exhale. Ever do one of those? Anybody done one of those today or had yours kids do one of those today? Your husband? That's what we do when we're standing at the ticket counter, at the airport, when things don't go our way. That's what we do in traffic. What is that? That is such a great breath because it is the breath that says either, "I'm exhausted, I'm exasperated". It's the "Oh man". It's the "I'm frustrated". It's the "I'm depleted".
It's disdain for the circumstance and the situation. And I'm telling you the best thing we can do is get in touch with the 20,000 exhales going on every day, and turn them into a revival of the heart saying, "What I'm breathing out right now, God, is A: If I'm feeling the weight, if I'm feeling the pressure, if I'm feeling like I'm under the gun, then I wanna breathe out in this moment, 'I can't do it. I'm at the end of my supplies. I don't have what it takes. I can't control this. I can't control them. I can't control her. I don't have enough resources. I don't have the energy. I can't do what I need to do right now.'"
And you know what? That is amazing to be able to exhale that. The problem comes when we inhale that all over again. "I can't do it. I don't have enough". And then, we go, we breathe back in the "I can't do it. I don't have enough". Instead of going, "You know what? When I breathe out, I breathe out carbon dioxide. When I breathe back in, I breathe back in oxygen". I don't breathe back in the same thing I breathed out. That's not good. And so, when I breathe out the pressure of the world, the weight of the world, whatever I'm afraid of, I breathe out.
"That's making me nervous right now". You know it's fight or flight. And God put that in us. We see a threat, either real or perceived and we're like, "Can I outrun it or am I gonna have to fight it? Can I get away from it or am I gonna have to get up in there with it"? And we decide that pretty quickly, and when we do that, our breathing becomes shallow, and sometimes during fight or flight, we don't even notice it, but we're not breathing at all.
Anybody struggling with anxiety? Shelley's done this to me a few times when she just tap me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, you're not breathing right now". And I'm like, "Oh, I didn't realize that. Oh, I wasn't breathing right now". And God is saying, "I need you to breathe. I need you to close your eyes and close out everything around you, and I need you to get in touch with the sovereign miraculous breath of God in your lungs. And I need you just to hear the miracle of breath, and I want you to exhale all the weight, but I don't want you to take it back in. When you inhale, I want you to inhale the sovereign God".
"I can't... but You can. I don't... but You do. I'm not... but you are". And we learn the rhythm of breathing out what we're afraid of, and breathing in the one who's greater than everything that could ever come against us in our lives.