Books on Spiritual Growth & Leadership Development

With the stigma unjustly associated with depression, it is rare for someone who has struggled with depression to talk about it and even more unusual to write about that battle. Thomas Lewis, the pastor of Commerce Presbyterian Church in Commerce, Georgia writes of his personal experience during this dark time of his life and how praying the Psalms, in his words, “a cup of cold water in parched land,” assisted him in finding God in the healing process.

Lewis states that the purpose of this book is to describe his experience in an effort “to try to crack the shell of myth, stigma, and shame that surrounds depression,” and to be a resource for three groups: depressed individuals, pastors who want to help depressed person, and family members who live with loved one walking through “the darkest valley” (Ps. 23:4a).

The author suggests several ways this short book (146 pages) can be used: private devotions; small church group discussion; and pastors counseling depressed persons.

The first two chapters give information on signs of depression, symptoms, descriptions of various types of depression, ramifications of this illness, and help and treatment in non-technical language.

The following chapters describe how depression can damage one’s spirit, and how prayer can be a spiritual resource for recovery, and particularly praying the psalms, the ancient prayers used in Temple worship by a people similarly suffering.  The last chapter provides eight spiritual exercises to pray the psalms: six psalms of lament (13, 22, 40, 42-43 considered as one, 77, and 130), and 30, a psalm of new orientation and 131, a psalm of confidence.

Appendix A and B provides an extensive list of resources and additional reading. I recommend this book to all pastors as a helpful guide and a spiritual resource not only in counseling those suffering from depression but in praying the psalms in one’s daily devotions. 

Lewis, Thomas Griffith, Finding God: Praying the Psalms in Times of Depression. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2002. ISBN: 066422573X

Reviewed by Rev. Ear.le Sickels, member of the Spiritual Growth and Leadership Development Committee, May 13, 2008

Resource Center Home

events

home

search