How can we possibly be happy with all that is going around us. Not only in our own world but also in the world around us. As much as we love our families, many moms struggle with depression due to the everyday problems that seem to go on forever and no end in sight. Put that with the world or even local news, and what happens? We might decide to escape through alcohol or smoking pot. Or even getting addicted to other drugs. Or worse.
Some of you might disagree but, in my opinion, we as believers must sometimes choose to be happy by starting each day with deciding that as we get up each morning, As I usually will say, it starts can start by reading God's Word.
God created joy. In fact, it is one of the fruits of the Spirit:
Galatians 5:22 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith
Do you know that a happy heart is good medicine? It's true. That scripture is found in Proverbs 17:22. But notice with me the rest of that verse.
But a broken spirit dries up the bones.
If we could just make people understand that how they let feelings of rejection, low self-worth, sadness and all like emotions of that kind, really helps kill us. We get defeated sometimes as soon as we get up or perhaps even during the night as we toss and turn, that things will never get better, or life is too much to take.
And if we could just learn to be joyful ourselves. For I believe most of us do struggle with those things that want to take us down. And possibly kill us.
However, we are not alone. Some of God's own people in days gone by suffered from depression.
You may want to look them up to check them out for yourself. Here are a few.
- Jonah (Jonah 4)
- Job (Book of Job)
- Elijah (1 Kings 19)
- King Saul (I Samuel 16:14-23, etc.)u
Others include Moses, Naomi, Hagar, David, Nehemiah, Hannah, Job, Judas, Paul, and John the Baptist.
And I wonder how many pastors actually preach sermons on any of these people to show that God's own people in the Bible struggled with depression and how they were able to deal with it. Because after all, God did want this subject to be in the Bible which over all is to teach us how to live. Right.? It had to an important subject to Him.
I don't believe that we have to walk around all the time like there is nothing wrong in our lives. We are not meant to be a person that lies to people to make them think that we have no problems. But I do believe we can be a joyful person in the midst of our suffering, knowing that our God gives us good things. And more importantly what Jesus did for us on Calvary. Just His love alone should cross out all negative feelings. At least most of the time. But I don't think we should let those things that are so heavy to carry, to weight us down all the time and take away our happiness.
I am going to do a dive into the lives of the people mentioned above and see what we can find out just what their problems were and how they handled them. Please come back tomorrow and we will begin with Jonah. You may want to get a head start on him in Chapter 4.
Thanks for coming by. May God bless your coming and goings today and every day. Deuteronomy 28:
No comments:
Post a Comment