Today, Paul, we have a question from a pastor in Latin America who asks,

can someone who constantly struggles with depression be qualified for ministry?

And then perhaps more broadly for the rest of us,

what biblical counsel do you have for those battling depression or getting through a season of spiritual drought?

Well, I think this question is important to me because it allows me to talk about something

in pastoral culture that I think is incredibly important. I am deeply persuaded that we've made the mistake of defining a capable

spiritual leader in a way that is very different from Scripture. In this generation, we've tended to prioritize the big personality, macho, strong,

got it all together, entrepreneurial, always ready, and always in charge leader. It's this person who knows everything, needs nothing, is independently capable,

needs no one, just follow me up the mountain.

And the biblical model is that God calls leaders, this is very important to understand, and it's

all over Scripture, not because they are capable, but because he is.

One of the most dominant names in all of Scripture, not just in the Old Testament, but comes up all over the New Testament, is Moses.

Moses was called to speak, and he said he wasn't a very good speaker.

In fact, he was so aware of his weaknesses and inability, he begged the Lord not to send him.

And yet, Moses is one of the giants in biblical history.

Or think of Gideon.

God called Gideon to lead a army against that marauding, violent nation of Midian.

And God finds him threshing wheat in a wine press.

Now that's kind of hysterical because you thrust wheat outside somewhere where the wind is blowing so the chaff can

separate from the wheat but he's doing it in an enclosure because he's afraid of the very

people that God's calling him to defeat and when God calls him, Gideon's response is,

I'm the least son of the least tribe in all of Israel.

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