Winter of the Soul II: Why Faithfulness Doesn’t Prevent Depression

The Whole Counsel · Jan 8, 2026 · 28m

This week on The Whole Counsel, Dr. John Snyder continues a thoughtful discussion on seasonal depression—whether that season is influenced by winter’s effect on our mood and mental state, or by a particularly difficult chapter of life. In the previous episode, Dr. Snyder introduced this theme through a candid letter from John Newton. In this episode, he turns to pastoral wisdom from Charles Spurgeon, drawing from a series of lectures recently published in a new book from Crossway, “Encouragement for the Depressed.”

Though Spurgeon originally delivered these lectures to vocational ministers…