Tag Depression

When We Feel Downcast

Todd R Leave a comment

We all have bad days.  Sometimes on those days it’s hard not to dwell on what’s gone wrong.  It’s hard not to make a list of the reasons why we’re feeling bad and focus on them.  It’s hard not to think about ways to immediately fix whatever problem we’re having.  However, Psalm 42 recommends a different approach.  Verse 6 of that Psalm ends with:

“My soul is cast down within me;
            therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
            from Mount Mizar.”

When we feel like our “soul is cast down,” we might say therefore we need to spend our time thinking about why.  We might say therefore I’ll just feel bad for myself.  We might say therefore the world is a bad place, or therefore the universe is conspiring against us.

But I got helpful advice from a friend years ago that when you find a “therefore” in the Bible, you should ask what it’s there for.  Everything in the list above are not what this “therefore” is there for.

According to Psalm 42, the right “therefore” is to remember God.  The therefore is there to give us something to think about when we feel “cast down.”  But what does it mean to “remember” God?  How is it helpful?  It means to meditate on God’s works, in the world, in the Bible, and in our lives, as reminders that He is bigger than our problems.

We may have many, many reasons to feel down, and the Psalmist knows this.  In verse 7 is written:

“Deep calls to deep
            at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
            have gone over me.”

Breakers and waves – difficulties in life – can constantly come one after the other and can seem to have no end, especially if we dwell on them, but note that the Psalmist refers to the breakers and waves as “your breakers” and “your waves.”  They belong to God, and do not come to us without His permission.  Often its more natural for us to think “I need a solution” than to think “I need God,” but He is always what we need.

While difficulties can go on and on, God’s love has no end either, as written in verse 8:

“By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
            and at night his song is with me,
            a prayer to the God of my life.”

His love is steadfast, meaning He cares for us “by day … and at night.”  He is always with us and ready to remind us of His love, even when all we can see are waves crashing over us.  If your soul is cast down, remember Him and His works.

Amen.

Things God Counts

Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow travelers,

Are you ever so fearful or anxious about something that you lose sleep about it? Are there things out of your control that you toss and turn over? Maybe it’s so bad that you even cry. If you’re like this, you’re definitely not alone, and in fact, King David struggled with this kind of anxiety.

In Psalm 56, David laments that his enemies are constantly out to get him, and then in verse 8, David wrote about God:

“You have kept count of my tossings;
            put my tears in your bottle.
            Are they not in your book?”

What David means is that God sees all of our anxiety and every detail about how it affects us.  He counts every time we toss and turn at night.  He counts every tear you cry, and keeps track of them all, because he cares.

This realization causes David to write in verses 10 and 11:

“In God, whose word I praise,
            in the LORD, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
            What can man do to me?”

Prayer or any religious practice won’t always cure anxiety, but as long as we suffer, God knows and cares about it.  We can trust Him to provide for us, sometime between now and eternity.

As Paul wrote about the glory of our salvation:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”[1]

Amen

[1] Romans 8:31b-32

Don’t Let the Stink Stop You – Blessed are the Meek #5

Todd R Leave a comment

Here’s a review of the series on meekness so far.  The first two posts contrasted two characters from the movie The Matrix, Agent Smith and Neo, to Jesus.  Agent Smith was the “Malevolent Incarnation,” who used and enforced rules to keep people in their place.  Smith can’t stand the stink of humanity and just wants to be free of it.  Neo, the hero of the Matrix series, is the “Ambivalent Incarnation” who wants to free mankind from rules, but otherwise wants to let them be as they are.  However, under Neo’s no-rules philosophy of “everyone should do what they want,” there is no foundation from which to object to anything someone else does, including brutal oppression.  Any objection is also an objection to the same philosophy Neo claims to hold, and “no city or house divided against itself will stand.”[1]

Jesus, contrasted to these, is the “Benevolent Incarnation.”  Jesus is more aware of the problems that make Agent Smith repulsed by us and that make him want to control us, but He also does not leave us alone with no way to overcome our problems.  He rules us for our good, and because we cannot meet His perfect standard, He lived it in our place, then died to cover the cost of our failure.  He wants to fix our stink, not because He hates us as Agent Smith does, but because He loves us in spite of our stink.  He refuses to allow us to stink forever, as Neo would.  He is benevolent, not malevolent or ambivalent.

Meekness is the third step in the Beatitudes, an intentionally sequential series of statements that describe what’s involved in following God, like gears in a machine: “First, being poor in spirit means that we have emptied ourselves of all illusions that our plans are better than God’s.  Second, mourning the state of ourselves and our world means we are emotionally engaged.  That we care.  In the third Beatitude, being meek is where we begin to engage our will, submitting it to God as our benevolent Lord.”

He wants us to also be benevolent incarnations, however we often don’t want to engage the third gear of meekness, where “the rubber meets the road” so to speak.  But if we don’t embrace it “the first two Beatitudes alone can leave us in a place where we’re a mess and the world is a terrible place and there’s nothing we can do about any of it.  It can be a place of depression and despair.”

Martha almost found herself stuck in this place when Jesus returned to Bethany after the death of Lazarus, her brother.  Jesus found the family mourning, then: “Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”  (John 11:39).  Jesus intended to raise Lazarus from the dead, but for Martha the stink was all she could think of.  Patently, Jesus encouraged her, the stone covering the entrance to the tomb was moved, and Lazarus walked out of the grave alive!

Don’t Let the Stink Stop You
Does the stench of sin keep us from being meek?  Do we, like Agent Smith, just want people to behave so we can go about our way?  Or does our obedience come first?  Jesus wants us to live as He lived, but we only can if we accept His righteousness and become invested in it at all levels of our being.  If we are truly poor in spirit and mourn our sin, what’s stopping us?

God won’t tell us to move the stone from Lazarus’ grave – that was Martha’s task. It also was not Jesus’ task.  We don’t do what Jesus would do, but what He would have us do.  He could have moved the stone Himself, but He wanted Martha to participate in His work, but to do that she had to be willing to be uncomfortable.

We all are often in Martha’s place, struggling with what Jesus wants us to do.  He asks us to do things that don’t make sense to us, that don’t make sense to the world, and sometimes it stinks (sometimes literally).  Jesus wants to bring His people to life, as He did with Lazarus, but there may be a stone He wants you to move, and it will only move if you have faith in Him stronger than the stink involved.

Meekness is the Cross
Meekness means carrying the cross the Father assigns to us.  For Jesus it was taking on all the sin of the world, not just by His death on a literal cross, but also by proactively taking on the consequences of it for the benefit of others.  We stink but He did not leave us alone.  For us, carrying the cross involves taking on some of the stink of the world, stepping into the suffering of others and offering the life that only Jesus can give.  What an amazing contrast this is to what’s so common today: pointing out sin everywhere and demanding those “other sinners” pay the price, or demanding that government solve the problem somehow, or withdrawing from problems that seem too big to do anything about.

Is there a stinky situation you’re aware of, but avoiding?  Being meek toward Jesus means we’re on board with His plan of salvation and willing to do our part, whatever that is.  Sometimes all that’s needed to bring someone life is moving a stone and enduring the odor.  While the smell was enough for Martha to hesitate, to Jesus it was part of the cost of living and dying for us.  He was willing to bear it, and if we meekly move the stone, Jesus will do the rest.

[1] Matthew 12:25

When You’re Stuck in Second Gear – Blessed are the Meek #4

Todd R Leave a comment

Everybody struggles with maintaining hope in tough times, and also with knowing and doing God’s will when what we feel is right seems irrelevant.  Today I’m going to cover a story of how the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah struggled to understand an idea God gave him to share hope with future generations, including us.  The story also loosely follows the outline of the first three Beatitudes and therefore fits in the “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” series.

If misunderstood, the first two Beatitudes alone can leave us in a place where we’re a mess and the world is a terrible place and there’s nothing we can do about any of it.  It can be a place of depression and despair.  Like in the theme song from the TV show Friends[1], we feel like “It hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.”  Where does it end?  But God promises that there is work for each of us to do: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) The third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek” promises a way forward – for every person in their own way to do whatever He has prepared for them.

The Gearbox of the Beatitudes
As I wrote in the first post on “Blessed are those who mourn” I believe the Beatitudes are an intentional sequence, and here I’ll describe better what I mean.  The Beatitudes are not a chronological path we move through as we mature.  We don’t learn to be fully poor in spirit before we can get any better at mourning or being meek.  The picture is more like gears in a machine that all need to work together for the machine to function in each specific situation.  Weakness in one place affects the entire machine and Jesus was explaining specific parts of becoming more like Him.  God, as our maker, knows how we function, the reasons behind when we fail to function, and the solution.  With the Beatitudes, Jesus encourages us to use the machine for what it was made for – loving God and neighbor in all times and circumstances.  First, being poor in spirit means that we have emptied ourselves of all illusions that our plans are better than God’s.  Second, mourning the state of ourselves and our world means we are emotionally engaged.  That we care.  In the third Beatitude, being meek is where we begin to engage our will, submitting it to God as our benevolent Lord.  If we don’t, “it’s like you’re always stuck in second gear” from the Friends theme song.

The story today (from Jeremiah 32) finds Jeremiah stuck.  The Jews had him imprisoned for speaking the words of their own God, and while he was there, God told him that he should buy a field.  Not only was Jeremiah in prison, but the field he was asked to buy was in enemy territory.  The Babylonians had already conquered much of Judah and were besieging Jerusalem.  Surrounded by despair, we can easily imagine Jeremiah asking: what good will it do?  He might think cutting off Nebuchadnezzar’s ear would be a better idea[2].

Jeremiah Inspects the Gears
As readers of the book of Jeremiah, we are doubly blessed to know that he did buy the field, but also that he recorded his prayer to God as he tried to overcome his reservations.  The prayer is in chapter 32, verses 17-25, and loosely reviews the first two Beatitudes, while he is having trouble engaging the third gear of meekness.  His mind and emotions are engaged, but his will hesitates.

First, Jeremiah reviews the power, character, and history of God to remind him to rely on His Spirit, not on the poverty of his own spirit in verses 17 to 23:

“‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.  You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts, great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of man, rewarding each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. You have shown signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and to this day in Israel and among all mankind, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day.  You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm, and with great terror.  And you gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.  And they entered and took possession of it.”

Second, Jeremiah mourns the consequences of Judah’s disobedience starting in the middle of verse 23 through verse 24:

“But they did not obey your voice or walk in your law. They did nothing of all you commanded them to do. Therefore you have made all this disaster come upon them.  Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it. What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it.”

Yet the prayer closes with Jeremiah doubting the significance of his own obedience in verse 25:

“Yet you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, “Buy the field for money and get witnesses”—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.”

In a book where the main theme is (temporary and partial) judgment on God’s people who had turned away from Him, there are also moments of (eternal) hope.  Jeremiah bought the field – to show God’s people that their exile would be temporary, and their eternal hope was secure. As the Beatitude says, the meek “shall inherit the earth“!   But there are also two notes of hope for us living centuries later: 1) that doubt is not something only “weak” Christians feel.  Jeremiah felt it too.  And 2) that encouragement matters, even if we see it as a meaningless drop in a turbulent ocean.  If God calls us to do it, it is meaningful.  For a lot of people “It hasn’t been their day, their week, their month, or even their year.”  To quote an old friend of mine in a recent Facebook post: “Encouragement. Everyone needs it, and we hardly ever share it. Don’t wait. Spread the love!”

If you still find yourself stuck, hesitant to shine God’s light in the darkness, go before God and follow the pattern of Jeremiah’s prayer – remember the power of His Spirit when yours is weak and the significance of obedience even in small things.  You might find not only yourself getting out of second gear, but also helping someone else move beyond a rut they’ve found themselves in.

“Let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:25

[1] “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandts (audio here)
[2] See the post “He Who Sits in the Heavens Laughs (Part 2)” for more on the growth in the Apostle Peter from cutting off Malchus’ ear to teaching “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” (1 Peter 2:1)

Mourning Has Value – Those Who Mourn #2

Todd R Leave a comment

Today is part 2 of a series on the second Beatitude from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” – Matthew 5:4. In the first post, I wrote about how mourning logically follows our awareness of needing Jesus because we are poor in Spirit.  When we mourn this way as Christians, we deeply acknowledge that we aren’t happy with the consequences of having sought our own way.

Many religions and philosophies see no value in sorrow.  Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers hated it and strived to avoid it.  Eastern religions sometimes deny its reality and seek to live above it.  On the other hand, in Christianity and Judaism stories like those of Job are highly valued, and verses like these from Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 are common –

“It is better to go to the house of mourning
      than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
       and the living will lay it to heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter,
       for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
       but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”

In Christianity, mourning can have value, helping sanctify us, making us more like Christ.  Mourning can be a form of confession – a way of saying the same thing about sin that God does.  When we mourn doing wrong things or neglecting things that should have been done, we agree with God on what is “wrong” and what “should” be done.  It is not the same as repentance but is often a preceding part of it.

The framework of the series of posts on Matthew 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” – shows many ways living outside the kingdom of heaven fails us and others:

  • Times we were too proud or ashamed to act (Post 1)
  • Times we thought earning God’s favor was more important than loving Him and our neighbor (Post 2)
  • Times we thought our own sins were ok because we thought they weren’t as bad as someone else’s (Post 3)
  • Times we failed privately because we couldn’t see the consequences or the point in trying (Post 4)
  • Times we didn’t love someone because they weren’t like us (Post 5)

Therefore, we should mourn!  Emotionally reacting to these things means that knowing we are “poor in spirit” is more than just an intellectual or logical idea.  Sin needs to mean something to us, deeply.  However, this mourning is not the same as despair, depression, or meaninglessness.  In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, spoken through the wizard Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings: “Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt.”  Only God can see the end, and there is more to come!  In Christianity it is but part of a journey, or in the case of the Sermon on the Mount, part of a sequence of Beatitudes.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” – Matthew 5:4

In the next post of the series, I plan to talk about Jesus’ reaction to death and the consequences of sin, focusing on John 11: 33 and 11:38.  He knows more about it than we ever will, and He cares deeply.

This post continues a series on the Beatitudes. To start at the beginning, click here, and for the next post click here