Study Gateway First Listens | Mental Health: Out Of The Cave by Chris Hodges

Chris Hodges wrote Out of the Cave during the pandemic, from a place of great personal darkness. He talks about the stigma of depression, and his teachings from the life of Elijah give us hope for getting out of the cave.

Show Notes

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You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.

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Creators & Guests

Guest

Chris Hodges

Chris Hodges is the founding and senior pastor of Church of the Highlands. Since it began in 2001, Highlands has grown to have campuses across the state of Alabama, and we’re known for our life-giving culture and focus on leading people to an intimate relationship with God. Pastor Chris has a deep passion for developing leaders and planting life-giving churches. He co-founded ARC (Association of Related Churches) in 2001, which has launched hundreds of churches across the United States. He also founded Grow, specializing in training and resourcing pastors and churches to help them break barriers and reach their growth potential. Chris is also the founder and Chancellor of Highlands College, a ministry training school that trains and launches students into full-time ministry careers.

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First Listens Season 2: Episode 1
Out of the Cave
By Chris Hodges
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Welcome to Season 2, everyone! You’re listening to Shelley Leith, host of Study Gateway’s First Listens, here you get first listens of the first sessions on Study Gateway so you can find your next video Bible study.
Well, we had a great Season 1, didn’t we? In our kickoff season I introduced you to some our newest and most popular Bible studies, which covered a whole gamut of topics like legacy, identity, faith, loneliness, and spiritual warfare. And here’s some insider news: the most popular episode of our season of most popular studies was … [drumroll] Episode 4, Who are You Following by Sadie Robertson Huff! So, if you want to know what everyone was all excited about, go back and check it out – Episode 4 of Season 1, Sadie Robertson Huff.
Here in Season 2, we’re going to focus in on one topic, the topic of mental health, and I’ll be bringing you sessions from seven Bible studies that deal with different aspects of mental health. You’ll be hearing deeply personal and powerful teachings from Chris Hodges, Karen Ehman, Pete Scazzero, Rebekah Lyons, Gary Thomas, Jennie Allen, Lecrae. These respected pastors and authors – and musicians - have all published their studies with HarperChristian Resources, and we stream their videos on Study Gateway. I’m confident that among these powerful messages you’ll find something that resonates with you and you’ll say, I NEED that whole Bible study in my life!
I’m starting off this season on Mental Health with Pastor Chris Hodges and his study, Out of the Cave. Chris wrote this study during the pandemic, from a place of great personal darkness, and after the trauma of the pandemic, I think we can all understand in a whole new way something Chris says: “No one is immune to depression – not Christians, not pastors [speaking of himself], not even God’s prophets [speaking of Elijah].” People stigmatize those who suffer from depression and other forms of mental illness, and for Christians, the stigma is even greater. In this study, Chris doesn’t fall back on platitudes or pat answers, but with great insight born from his own experience, he helps us follow Elijah Out of the Cave. Let’s listen to Session One, “Even Prophets Get Depressed.”

[MUSIC PLAYING] CHRIS HODGES: Have you ever had frantic thoughts keep you awake at night, overwhelming emotions consuming you, and leaving you feeling powerless to move forward? And when that happens, if you're like me, you can't help but wonder, why isn't my faith strong enough to handle this? Well, you're not alone.
In this study, we're going to discover some of the reasons why this happens to us and step into the light that God wants for all of us. We're going to meet one of the Old Testament's most influential prophets and find that even when we're working closely with God, we can get lost in the wilderness of tangled emotions. Together, we're going to get out of the cave.
Hi, I'm Chris Hodges, and welcome to Week Number 1 of the small group study based on my book "Out of the Cave." For the next five sessions together, we're going to go on a journey through the principles in the book, but also dive a little deeper into God's word with the goal of learning more about the causes of depression and what God wants us to do to help. Now, these lessons can also be used for individual study, but really, it's best if you're in a small group setting. So I want to encourage you to form a group in person, or maybe even online, so you can learn together and talk it out and have some accountability and help each other grow.
Our story begins with the prophet Elijah, one of the most notable characters in the Bible. Elijah is considered to be one of the greatest prophets and miracle workers and even shows up in the New Testament in the transfiguration of Jesus. Now, many scholars believe that Elijah is one of the two witnesses in the book of Revelation at the end of time. I tell you that because, bottom line, it seems like Elijah's a pretty important person, and with all of that God connection, with all of that affirmation from Heaven, with all of that faith and miracles flowing through him, he still got depressed and wanted to die. And so I want to set up the story as we study God's word.
Elijah, this biblical prophet-- he's called by God to speak to the future of a generation of Israel that was really not following God at the time, and he was basically prophesying their impending doom if they reject God. And in I Kings Chapter 18, there's this great story of this showdown with the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel. In fact, I've actually been to this spot in Israel. It's a great place that you ought to probably go visit someday. And God's fire comes down and consumes this water soaked sacrifice, and the prophets of Baal were defeated.
Now, this was a slap in the face of this wicked king of Israel at the time, who believed in these wicked prophets. And especially, King Ahab's wife Jezebel really did not like Elijah. So after this great victory, our story begins in the next chapter, 1 Kings Chapter 19 verse 1, and it says this.
"Now, Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword, so Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, may the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if, by this time tomorrow, I do not make your life like that of one of them." So she threatened to kill him. Now, you would think that if Elijah could stand up to all of these prophets of Baal that he wouldn't really cave at the threat of one person. This one person could not put him in terror. Right?
But it did, and for our study, let me make two quick observations right off the bat, and that is, number one, that depression often comes on the heels of a spiritual or emotional high, and I know that firsthand. I experienced this, a lot of times, almost every Sunday, after we've had this incredible church services, that a lot of times, the enemy comes into my mind, or I have these negative thoughts on Sunday nights. And why is that? I believe, many times after a spiritual or emotional high, our emotions have really no where else to go but down. And so I think, sometimes, we even take off our guard with all of these great victories, and sometimes, I think there's even a sense of pride or this feeling of invincibility. And that's where, a lot of times, we find ourselves in trouble.
A second observation is that depression often comes when our minds take over. So we're alone, and we're ruminating, and we think about some things. We fear some things that honestly usually never happens. This is what happened to Elijah.
He was thinking about what Jezebel might do, and we have these comparisons that we go through, lies, and we ruminate. I write about this in chapter 6. I want you to really study that chapter.
But that's what Elijah did. He let his mind take over, and the Bible says that "Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. And when he came to Beersheba in Judah," he did a very bad thing. "He left his servant there.
He isolated himself while he himself went on a day's journey into the wilderness, and he came to a broom bush," which is a short tree that has just a little bit of covering in a desert, and "he prayed that he might die. And he said, I've had enough Lord. Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors."
Here's Elijah, who had been fearless for years, and at the threat of one person, he wants to take his life. He becomes frightened. He turns and runs out to the edge of the desert and gets depressed. And I think it's a picture of where we find ourselves sometimes.
And one of the things I like about the Bible is really how real it is. It doesn't always show these biblical characters as perfect. In fact, most of the Bible is full with imperfect characters.
It doesn't show Elijah as this great person who never does anything wrong. Watch this. He was a human, and he struggled just like you and I do. In fact, I love this verse in James 5:17. It says, "Elijah was a human being, even as we are."
Now, I can relate to that. A lot of times, people look to guys like me, like because we're pastors, we never have struggles. Honestly, I've had at least five different bouts of depression in my lifetime, my first one at 15 years old. One of them as recently as last year.
But in 1999, I had one of the worst years of my life. A lot of bad things happened that I really can't get into, but I was just in a depressed place. But I had to kind of fake it in my job and put on this smile and act like everything's OK, like so many people do.
And our church always had 21 days of prayer to start a year, and so I started praying and fasting at the beginning of 2000. And I was convinced, honestly, that my problem was not spiritual, and that it wasn't even circumstantial. I actually thought I had something biological going on inside of me. I actually thought that, after these 21 days, that if I didn't get a breakthrough, that I was actually going to go check myself into some hospital or some kind of treatment to find out what was going on.
It was on day 17 of that prayer and fasting time at my church that God gave me a vision, and I'll teach you more about that later in our study. He gave me a picture of what he wanted me to do, and almost instantaneously, this depression left. This feeling of sickness in my soul left, and rest of that story is I ended up moving to Birmingham, Alabama, to plant a church. And so I know firsthand what this feels like to be in this place of, you're supposed to be OK, and you're even faking it on the outside. But you're really just not OK.

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Isn’t it comforting, in a way, to hear that even prominent pastors like Chris Hodges struggle with things like depression, anxiety, faking it? This is such an important message, and I’m so glad you’re joining me here at Study Gateway’s First Listens. This first session of Out of the Cave is published by HarperChristian Resources and it streams on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we are offering an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get a small group plan for up to 20 people for only $15.99/month, a 20% savings. And, for a complete experience with Out of the Cave, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the group discussion questions and leader materials, the Scripture text and key ideas, and personal Bible study and reflection exercises to do between sessions. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.
And now, back to Chris Hodges.

[MUSIC PLAYING] CHRIS HODGES: Now, several years ago, there were some pastors in our nation who went through some depression, and in fact, a couple of them committed suicide. I did not know these pastors, but I saw this as a growing issue. And because I had some experience myself, I decided to do a message, just one message at our church, and then I taught it at a pastors conference, just a short study on depression. The response was huge. It was one of the most rewatched messages that we had ever had in our church.
And so I realized, wow, I've really hit a nerve of something that people are dealing with, and that was about three or four years ago. Since then, I've actually lost a close friend of mine, who's a pastor, to mental illness, and he took his own life. The fact is, and the reality is, this issue affects all of us at one time or another, and what I did three years ago, when I just started this study and started actually writing this book, I thought, you have to start by defining it. We have to make sure we really understand what it is.
And here is the definition that I found and pieced together through my studies, and that is depression is a mood disorder characterized by anhedonia. I didn't even know what that word meant, by the way. Anhedonia is when something gives you pleasure, and then it stops giving you pleasure. So you enjoyed having this meal, but all of sudden, you can't find the pleasure in the thing. And that's a lot of us that are in this study, and I'm so glad you're here.
Anhedonia, extreme sadness, poor concentration, sleep problems, loss of appetite, and feelings of guilt, helplessness, and hopelessness. Well, that's about all of us, isn't it? And we all have those at times, and I think that's very, very important for us to realize.
And almost to some degree, not leave it there, but not be ashamed that's where we get sometimes because depression is real. Mental illness is real. Studies say that one out of every nine people are on some type of depression medication. One out of every five people have been at some point. Antidepressant use has gone up 300% recently and continues to increase.
In fact, many people consider depression to be the number one health problem in the world. Now, if that's the case it requires our understanding, and that's why I wrote this book. So that not only for us, but for the people in our families, and for the people we lead, and the people that we go to school with and work with. So in this first lesson, I want you to study your study guide and have a discussion with your group, but I really want to leave you with two important things that I learned as I wrote the book. And I'd love for you to discuss these in your small group study first, and that is that there are very real biological contributions to depression and anxiety.
In other words, you can be sick, and many times, it needs medical attention to help us through that. So we can't get to a place where we deny that, but watch this. But if we allow biology to become the whole picture, we can oftentimes miss real solutions because we aren't looking in other places, and it can be a combination of many places.
I like how one researcher said it. He said, "Depression is not a malfunction of the mind. It's a signal." In other words, it's a symptom of sorts that is trying to tell us something, and I think one of the best things we can do is that when we go through it, don't think that this is the problem.
No, no, no, sometimes, we just need to ask ourselves, and maybe even ask one another in this small group study, here's what I'm feeling. What do you think is actually happening? Now, it could be medical. It could be biological. But what do you think our body, mind, and emotions are trying to tell us?
Because if you're depressed, if you're anxious, if you have anxiety in your life, you're not weak, and you're not crazy. You're a human being perhaps with unmet needs in other parts of your life. That's going to be my story, and that's what you'll read in the book. In fact, in our next lesson, we're going to try to discover what some of those needs might be.
Here's the second thing I learned, and that is that many times, we're just afraid to talk about it. Now, there is clearly a stigma on depression and mental illness, and it's one that honestly doesn't exist when other parts of us are broken or sick, so if I break my arm, nobody thinks that there's a problem with me. They think, well, you just fell down. You broke your arm. They don't they don't put my humanity into that.
Many times, we tend to think less of a person when they struggle with depression or mental illness, but when someone gets physically sick with the flu or has a cold, we don't think less of them. And here's the bottom line-- we've got to remove the stigma of depression. We cannot let our illness become our identity.
And I want to just pause here for a moment say that to every person who has allowed what you're going through to shape how you think about yourself. Probably one of the best things that I did as a pastor was come out and say, you know what, I've struggled with this. And for a lot of people in my profession, they really don't do that because they're afraid, well, I might lose the respect of the people that I'm trying to lead. You know what I've learned? People respect me all the more.
I think what I love about the Bible is it shows people like the apostle Paul, who in Romans 7, says you know what, I'm struggling with sin. I want to do the right thing, but I keep find myself doing the wrong thing. And I think there's something powerful that happens when we don't sweep it under the rug or try to put on this facade on the outside.
Let me say it this way-- it's OK to not be OK, and if you're not OK, it's OK. It's just not OK for you to walk through that alone, and it's not OK for you to think that there are no solutions because there are. So let's start talking about it. Let's begin by being open, and let's discover what God can and will do to help.
Listen to me-- God wants to make all of us healthy again-- body, soul, and spirit. He cares. God wants to reveal himself to you in a very special way. In fact, I'd love for you just to open up your heart to the fact that this could be more than just a study where you learn some things, but you might actually experience God. I believe this book will help you create environments where you can get close to God, to quiet your soul, to make room for God.
Listen to me-- he's closer than you think. Psalm 46:10 says, be still and know that I'm God. Psalm 16:11 says, in your presence is fullness of joy.
Isaiah 61:3 says, "The garment of praise is available for the spirit of heaviness, that you may be called a tree of righteousness." One translation says an oak, solid. You've seen your life is fragile, but "you'll become the planting of the Lord that he may be glorified."
I want to speak to every person who has that spirit of heaviness, and I want you to know that God has a prescription for you. He's going to put up a song of praise back into your heart. He's going to turn you into this oak of righteousness, and I truly believe that God not only wants to reveal himself to you, but he's also going to give you a dream and a vision and a project that will energize your life again, give you hope again. Look, I'm 58 years old right now, and I can tell you again of these five or six times that I've been through depression, and every time, God's renewed my passion. He's renewed my vision for what he has for my life, and I really truly believe that's going to happen to you as well.
So I want to encourage you in this study, and I want to pray for you, and I want you to study the study guide and have discussion in your group and get ready for next week. Father, thank you so much for just helping us get started in this by realizing that there could be some factors that we've not been able to see that have caused us to be in the condition in our soul that we're in. But I pray, God, that there would be no shame in any person for where they are and just how they feel, but, God, that you'd give them the courage and the boldness to say, you know what, I have that, and I need some help.
God, I'm asking you to move in their lives in a powerful way. I'm asking, Lord God, for you to reveal yourself to them. I'm praying, God, that you would quiet their souls so they can hear from you.
Lord, I pray, God, that you'd prepare them for the project, the assignment, the vision that you have for them. Lord, bless every person in this study, and I pray, God, as we take this journey together, we're going to come out of the cave. In Jesus' name, Amen. God bless you.

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: You know what? There’s no shame if you’re in the cave, and with God’s help, you’ll find your way out of the cave. You have just enjoyed a first listen to the first session of Out of the Cave, a video Bible study by Chris Hodges, published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!
With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for Out of the Cave; a study guide designed to help you remember what you’ve learned in the videos, guide your discussion of your insights with others, dig deeper into what the Bible says about this topic, and apply what you’re learning to your life. Is Out of the Cave going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.
Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. And come back next week for our next episode in the Mental Health season, where the title says it all, When Making Others Happy Makes You Miserable! By Karen Ehman. See you next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
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