The moment we want something so desperately that we seek it with all our effort - that is the moment of change. It may be we want a drink of water, cooled with lots of ice on a hot sunny day. We even want it so bad we'd crack ice cubes from an old fashioned ice cube tray! We change our position from just 'wanting' something to doing something to obtain it! There are times when all we need is to get up again - because the change we so desperately need is not found where we are, but in rising from that place!
I'm feeling terrible—I couldn't feel worse! Get me on my feet again. You promised, remember? When I told my story, you responded; train me well in your deep wisdom. Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders. (Psalm 119:25-27)
True enough, the the cold, hard truth that we are miserable at times and we just need to get honest about where we are! Have you ever been this honest with God? Really just getting down to the nitty-gritty with him in all honesty - telling him like it is. It is probably one of the hardest things for some of us to actually do. We try to paint a rosy picture many times, instead of being as forthright as David finds himself being in this passage. David lays it all out there - "I'm feeling terrible! I couldn't feel worse!" Let me tell you, David struggled with some pretty severe depression from what I can see recorded throughout his life - something many of us struggle with, too!
He connects with God exactly where he is "at" - his feelings don't match what he wants to be doing! He wants to be "up on his feet again" - feeling his oats - but his condition (feelings) betray his true condition of heart, soul, and spirit. He is miserable - and his feelings of misery are coloring the way he sees life at that very moment. Thank goodness for this example - by studying what he did with his "feelings", we can learn what we are supposed to "do" with ours when they creep in on us, too. We are to bring them to the one that actually created them! God made us this way, with all these emotions, so it stands to reason that he is the one that can help us get to a place of "standing strong" in those emotions once again!
Depression "gets us down" - we "feel" like we are under a load of bricks and we just cannot possibly get out from under them. Try as we might, the 'change' we need is just harder than we ever anticipated! This kind of "misery" or "despair" is best left to the expert - God! It is likely time we let our misery out before God. Do not keep it bottled up, shoved into denial, or covered over with a false "mask" of "I'm okay". This is the beginning of hope for those in depression - getting it out in the open. When we can finally begin to talk about what we are experiencing - that "ton of bricks" burden that is weighing us down - we can begin to connect with hope.
It isn't wrong for us to remind God of his promises. We may know God's promises - having studied them, incorporating them into our lives one by one. In our times of despair, we can recount them to the one who made them to us in the first place! It isn't that God needs reminding, but rather that we do! Most of the time, we want to understand what gets us into the place of misery. We need to ask God to help us not only understand the things that will bring us out of his despair, but what it is that can keep us out of it in the first place! No amount of "self-help" will get us to the place of recognizing the root of our misery - that is a job best left to God. He delights in showing us the "path" that got us into the pit because he didn't create us to "dwell" in the pit! This seems way too simple of a 'fix' to one buried under a load of depression, but I can tell you this - the bricks in that pile are removed one at a time. The master brick-layer is God - he has a use for each "BRICK" in our pile - even the ones we put there by mistake. As we allow him to remove those weighty bricks of despair, misery, and depression, he will make something more beautiful from them than we might possibly imagine. In my own times of depression, I have found this to be true. God can make beauty from what I see as nothing more than ugliness! It is in the one who "handles" the bricks that the beauty is evident! Just sayin!
I'm feeling terrible—I couldn't feel worse! Get me on my feet again. You promised, remember? When I told my story, you responded; train me well in your deep wisdom. Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders. (Psalm 119:25-27)
True enough, the the cold, hard truth that we are miserable at times and we just need to get honest about where we are! Have you ever been this honest with God? Really just getting down to the nitty-gritty with him in all honesty - telling him like it is. It is probably one of the hardest things for some of us to actually do. We try to paint a rosy picture many times, instead of being as forthright as David finds himself being in this passage. David lays it all out there - "I'm feeling terrible! I couldn't feel worse!" Let me tell you, David struggled with some pretty severe depression from what I can see recorded throughout his life - something many of us struggle with, too!
He connects with God exactly where he is "at" - his feelings don't match what he wants to be doing! He wants to be "up on his feet again" - feeling his oats - but his condition (feelings) betray his true condition of heart, soul, and spirit. He is miserable - and his feelings of misery are coloring the way he sees life at that very moment. Thank goodness for this example - by studying what he did with his "feelings", we can learn what we are supposed to "do" with ours when they creep in on us, too. We are to bring them to the one that actually created them! God made us this way, with all these emotions, so it stands to reason that he is the one that can help us get to a place of "standing strong" in those emotions once again!
Depression "gets us down" - we "feel" like we are under a load of bricks and we just cannot possibly get out from under them. Try as we might, the 'change' we need is just harder than we ever anticipated! This kind of "misery" or "despair" is best left to the expert - God! It is likely time we let our misery out before God. Do not keep it bottled up, shoved into denial, or covered over with a false "mask" of "I'm okay". This is the beginning of hope for those in depression - getting it out in the open. When we can finally begin to talk about what we are experiencing - that "ton of bricks" burden that is weighing us down - we can begin to connect with hope.
It isn't wrong for us to remind God of his promises. We may know God's promises - having studied them, incorporating them into our lives one by one. In our times of despair, we can recount them to the one who made them to us in the first place! It isn't that God needs reminding, but rather that we do! Most of the time, we want to understand what gets us into the place of misery. We need to ask God to help us not only understand the things that will bring us out of his despair, but what it is that can keep us out of it in the first place! No amount of "self-help" will get us to the place of recognizing the root of our misery - that is a job best left to God. He delights in showing us the "path" that got us into the pit because he didn't create us to "dwell" in the pit! This seems way too simple of a 'fix' to one buried under a load of depression, but I can tell you this - the bricks in that pile are removed one at a time. The master brick-layer is God - he has a use for each "BRICK" in our pile - even the ones we put there by mistake. As we allow him to remove those weighty bricks of despair, misery, and depression, he will make something more beautiful from them than we might possibly imagine. In my own times of depression, I have found this to be true. God can make beauty from what I see as nothing more than ugliness! It is in the one who "handles" the bricks that the beauty is evident! Just sayin!
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