I can’t place where it came from. Maybe I read it in a book, heard it in a sermon, or someone once said it to me. But it slipped into my mind unbidden, a quiet, nagging voice.

If you only trusted God more, you wouldn’t feel this way.

If I really believed God’s promises, anxiety wouldn’t grip me every time I buckled my children into the car to drive on the back country roads where our car had been totaled.

If I meditated more on God’s Word, the gospel would be sweeter, overcoming the doubts stemming from depression’s lies that God wasn’t good.

If I could just rest in my identity as God’s child, surely OCD’s intrusive thoughts would loosen their grip on me.

If only I had more faith, maybe, just maybe, I’d feel better.

But this misunderstands the nature of faith.

Faith Believes There is Something Beyond the Darkness

The author of Hebrews defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Faith isn’t about how few depressed or anxious thoughts assail us. It’s about how we respond to those and other circumstances we see based on our certainty of what we do not see.

What we see when we’re depressed is darkness, often with nothing beyond it. What we see when anxiety overwhelms us is our worst fears coming true. What we see isn’t antithetical to faith; it’s an opportunity to exercise faith.

Faith doesn’t say there is no darkness; it says there’s something beyond it. It believes hope exists, even when it can’t be sensed through the veil of suffering. Faith knows that while our suffering is real, the truest truth is that Jesus, our redeemer, lives (Job 19:25), the Son of God “loved [us] and gave himself for [us]” (Gal. 2:20), and though we groan now, nothing can separate God’s children from his love (Rom. 8:22–39).

Faith is about trusting in a reality beyond our suffering. It does not result in a lack of suffering, in the sense that if we just had more, it would go away. In fact, having more faith is not the point—even faith as small as “a grain of mustard seed” can do great things (Luke 17:5–6). The point is not the amount of faith that we have, but who it rests in.

Faith Is About Rest, Not Work

If you only trusted God more, you wouldn’t be depressed.

The second problem with this statement is that it measures faith by how much we do, implying that if we could just get our act together—pray more, read the Bible more, trust more—then we’d be fine.

This is an emotional prosperity gospel, which leads us to believe that if we do all the right things, our mental distress will automatically be healed. We may sometimes feel bad because of our sin or lack of faith, because we are not resting in Jesus. But as with physical illness, mental suffering doesn’t always result from a lack of faith or sin (John 9:3). We live in a fallen world, and our bodies and minds are affected by innocent suffering as well. Though there is wisdom in living righteously and walking in obedience by faith, there is no guarantee that such living will result in a life of ease. Faith is not a formula; life is not always cause and effect. Like Job—a righteous man who experienced unbearable suffering—we often can’t explain why we suffer the way we do. We simply have to submit, like he did, to the mystery of faith (Job 42:1–6).

What, then, proves our faith? The New City Catechism defines saving faith as “receiving and resting on [Jesus Christ] alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel” (Q&A 30). Our measure of faith isn’t in how much we’re doing to fix ourselves, but in whom we’ve placed our hope. Jesus is the one who saves us by grace through faith and not our works (Eph. 2:8–9). Though we can and should make use of doctors, rest, and other means of healing, our hope doesn’t lie in what we can do to feel better, but in Jesus, our Savior and Great High Priest (Heb. 7:25), and the lasting city where every tear is wiped away (Heb. 13:6; Rev. 22:4). The focus of our faith should not be a pain-free existence on earth but Jesus, in whom we have “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul,” so that we who flee to him “for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18–19).

Faith Proved by Turmoil

The real proof of faith isn’t a lack of turmoil. Some of us, by nature or circumstance, may think our faith is strong because we are generally cheerful. Our faith may very well be strong! But the test of its strength comes when life is hard. A new ship sitting in the harbor looks stronger than a battered, tattered frigate returning from battle, yet the strength of the latter is proven and trustworthy.

If you’re depressed, you may feel like you don’t have much, if any, faith in God. Yet when you don’t measure your faith by feelings, you may find there is more there than you realized. Maybe despite all your doubts and questions, you keep coming back to God. Perhaps you don’t know what to do about everything else around you, yet you tenaciously cling to Jesus. These are both signs of the Spirit’s work in you. And there’s more: the choice to get out of bed, go to the doctor, or live another day. These are all signs that you believe there is something beyond what you currently see and feel.

Yet sometimes we can’t look beyond. In many ways, that’s the essence of depression. In these times, you need people around you who can help you lift your gaze, who can tell you of the surety of what you do not see, who can be the Sam to your Frodo and carry you through the darkness.

Despite having personally walked through the darkness, the thought can still sneak into my mind that more faith and trust would mean less pain, less depression, and less anxiety. But when I look at those whose faith I want to emulate—in stories, in real life, in Scripture—they are the ones who have faith like one depressed, who remain assured that what is not seen, felt, or fathomed is real and exists beyond the darkness.

Faith Like One Depressed

As I look back on my past depression and anxiety and wonder what the future may hold, as much as I want to avoid those experiences again, that’s ultimately not what I pray for. Instead, I ask for faith.

Give me faith like one who has held on when all seems lost, who has stared despair in the face but clung to the assurance of things hoped for, who has sat in the darkness of the silence of God for many long nights without a glimpse of the stars yet refused to walk away.

Give me faith that I may stand before an army of dark thoughts and shout again and again and again, “Day will come again!” refusing to give up, refusing to accept that the darkness wins.

Give me faith like one depressed.