Category: Depression

6/15/2024 0 Comments

Emotions Matter

“Why is it that so many Christians make such lousy human beings?” So asks Peter Scazzero in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (p.23).[1] Scazzero goes on to share the top ten symptoms of Jesus-followers who are emotionally unhealthy.
1. Using God to run from God
2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear
3. Dying to the wrong things
4. Denying the past’s impact on the present
5. Dividing our lives into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
6. Doing for God instead of being with God
7. Spiritualizing away conflict
8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure
9. Living without limits
10. Judging other people’s spiritual journey (p. 24).

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10/28/2023 4 Comments

A Wonderful Aroma

Meditation
2 Corinthians 2:14-16—But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. And who is competent for this?

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11/23/2022 0 Comments

Beating Mediocrity

Janet has her own cleaning service; for years, she had no trouble gaining enough clients to run a successful business because of her work quality. As her business expanded, she hired another worker, and that’s when the problems began. When Janet cleans a room, it is immaculate, but with her new employee Justin, it was not the same. She showed him the cleaning materials to use and demonstrated what “right looks like.” At first, she thought his cleaning lapses merely required on-the-spot corrections. But Justin’s work continually languished. He responded with excuses when she would point out deficiencies rather than learn and improve. After three frustrating months, she had to let him go.

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8/31/2022 1 Comment

Wrong

Janice* called me.  Her voice conveyed discouragement, confusion, and a hint of controlled resentment.  After listening to her, I felt saddened and angry.

Several leaders—male and female from various churches in other states and a school, all tied to a nationally-known pastor and speaker told Karen she was not a Christian.  One of those pastors refused to baptize her. Janice shared the statements they leveled against her. They judged a woman suffering from post-traumatic stress (PTS) from their presumptuous and self-righteous position, causing grave damage to a young Christian struggling to grow in her faith.  Now she was uncertain of her salvation.  She felt unsafe and criticized in churches—where she should be most safe and find compassion—not condemnation.

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6/18/2020 1 Comment

Despair: The Lord's Hand is Against Me

Ten times the word despair is used in the Holman Bible. Fittingly Job is the source of one third of them. The Psalmist cried out, “Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I waited for sympathy, but there was none; for comforters, but found no one” (Psa. 69:20). Despair is the stuff of hopelessness. It is a sinking feeling that saps one’s resolve. If not properly addressed it becomes the lingering glue of gloom.

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3/25/2020 1 Comment

Scared and Sustained

Have you ever been so afraid that you dropped everything you were doing and left everyone you knew to run and hide? Elijah did that and his petrified escape is an amazing story.

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3/19/2019 1 Comment

The Power of Belief

Talisa

My son Bryan was invited to share his story at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. He was one of two featured speakers on a night when almost every participant in the room shared some kind of disability. Disabilities included Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), asthma, depression, cancer, arthritis, etc. Each person was asked to write a poem about their challenges and to highlight what was bad as well as what was good. Then, throughout the evening, volunteers could come to the front of the room and share what they wrote.

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4/13/2018 0 Comments

24/7

What causes people to be downcast? I would surmise in most cases it is because of unfavorable circumstances. We want something that does not materialize. We deal with sickness. An enemy is a relentless grief-flinger. “Sixty students who had attempted suicide were asked why they had wanted to end their lives. The majority, 85 percent, said they had tried to kill themselves because their lives seemed meaningless and without purpose . . . Without purpose we lose motivation and sometimes lose health and even lose life.”[1] Without understanding God’s ever-present love we are destined for despair.

There is a passage in the Talmud that says, “We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.” It is easy to be pessimistic if our perspective is rooted in the wrong place.

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2/18/2008 0 Comments

Depressed

Psalm 42 and 43 belong together as one work and could aptly be titled “Depressed.” Verses 1-3 in chapter 42 indicate the writer’s distance from God:
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?”

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8/6/2004 0 Comments

Burn Out

Meditation
Isaiah 40:27-31— Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God.”Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

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5/27/1999 0 Comments

Fatigue

There is weariness in the kingdom of God that should evoke more than yawns. Many of God’s servants have lost their energy. Mornings of zest have become dreary sunrises. Bitterness saps the strength of the bewildered saints who feel God has abandoned them. Depression steals the first love that made spiritual life so potent. The power of God that once flowed so smoothly has been shut off at the plant of fatigue.

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12/14/1998 0 Comments

Loneliness

We come to the time of year when Christians around the world celebrate the incredible birth of Christ. For many it is a time of giving gifts—a holiday ritual recognizing the second greatest gift of all time. What manner of love for those of His image--yet deeply flawed, possessed God to send His Son to be conceived a baby? What marvelous humility flowed from our omnipotent Lord that His Son should bypass the greatest of human protocols to be born in a smelly stable? Like the wisemen who followed the star, we trace the life and ministry of Jesus, joyful that His holy journey liberated us from the dungeon of sin. But there is so much more to His story, so much more to who He is.

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