Are Discouragement and Depression Sins?

I do not believe they are for the following reasons:

1. The Bible nowhere calls it a sin

2. Many of the great characters of the Bible experienced both discouragement and depression

3. Neither David, Paul, Jeremiah nor others were rebuked for being discouraged

4. Discouragement and depression could be the weakness in which God is made strong in us

5. Charles Spurgeon, himself a well known sufferer if depression, once said, "Discouragement is the lot of the preacher. God will not share his glory."[1]

Though discouragement might lead a person to behave in a sinful way it is not necessarily so and it is not the discouragement that is the actual cause of the sin. As with any testing, a person has the ability to use that test to draw them closer to God or push them further away from God. Depression may be the tool used if the Lord to greatly use a man.[2]

Marvin McKenzie

In the field

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[1] I believe this quote may be found in Spurgeon's "Lectures to My Students." I would urge any preacher to read his "Lectures" in its entirety.

[2] Many of David's Psalms are written under the cloud of depression. How much poorer would we be without those great passages of pathos and tears!