Earlier this week we published a blog in follow up to Ryan’s sermon, “Why Are You Downcast? Unpacking Depression.” That post included a number of Scriptures, quotes, and reflections on the subject of depression and spiritual desertion specifically.

In this post we’re including links to a number of the more helpful books and articles on the subject of depression and spiritual desertion. Of course, a great first-stop in exploring this matter is Ryan’s three-session Saturday Seminar on Depression conducted several years ago here at DSC. The third session was about spiritual desertion specifically.

Resources about Depression in General

• Blame It on the Brain?: Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience, Ed Welch
• The Bruised Reed, Richard Sibbes
• Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, Martin Lloyd-Jones
• Deserted by God?, Sinclair Ferguson
• When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight For Joy, John Piper
• Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness, Ed Welch
• “Spiritual Depression in the Psalms,” John Piper
• “Depression, Gratitude and Charles Haddon Spurgeon,” Randy Alcorn
• “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” Charles Haddon Spurgeon
• “Spiritual Depression” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), Thabiti Anyabwile
• “Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul: Learning from the Mind and Heart of C. S. Lewis,” John Piper
• “Charles Spurgeon: Preaching Through Adversity,” John Piper
• “Insanity and Spiritual Songs in the Soul of a Saint: Reflections on the Life of William Cowper,” John Piper

Resources about Spiritual Desertion

• The Case and Cure of a Deserted Soul: Or a Treatise Concerning the Nature, Kinds, Degrees, Symptoms, Causes, Cures Of, and Mistakes About Spiritual Desertions, Joseph Symonds
• “The Puritain in Private,” in The Genius of Puritanism, Peter Lewis
• A Lifting Up for the Downcast, William Bridge
• Spiritual Desertion, Gisbertus Voetius
• The Dejected Soul’s Cure, Christopher Love
• The Soul’s Conflict With Itself and Victory Over Itself by Faith, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, Vol 1
• Discouragement’s Recovery, in The Works of Richard Sibbes, Vol 7
• A Child of Light Walling in Darkness, in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol 3
• “Desertion: Does God Ever Desert His People?,” C. Matthew McMahon
• “Puritans Living in Relationship to Affliction, Desertion, and Sin,” Joel R. Beeke