Food for thought

Discipline of Dejection

"But we trusted... and beside all this, today is the third day..."

I feel it is pretty obvious that today depression is an epidemic in this nation.  Depression lies at the root of much evil. It brings out wrong behaviors in every aspect of life.  Relationships are strained and you do not have to look any further than your own family and your bathroom mirror to see it. " In this world you will have trouble, but my peace I leave with you."  So why don't we run to Jesus and live? Do we believe the lie that we are in a deep dark hole with no way out?  Are we too busy feeling sorry for ourselves, under our time constraint, pressure of circumstances (which we choose to create by the way) that we actually believe we do not have time to read and get to know our Father and Creator? Sounds pretty absurd when you write it down but in reality it is the lie we live as a truth in this society of busyness.  The truth is, we believe the lie and are depressed because all has gone to hell in a hand basket so to speak.          "But we trusted..."  "Oh ye of little faith..." we are.  If we trusted, a good portion of our time would be spent poring over the scriptures in pure joy renewing our minds and it would be evident in this busy stressful world.   Yet we do not, and then here comes our meaningless prayers of 'help us save us!'  "The meaning of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not the answer." O.C.  What does this mean? We should ponder a while this profound statement.  "The meaning of prayer is THAT WE GET A HOLD OF GOD", that IS the answer!  It is a shift of focus, we do not demand our prayers be answered to our desires but that our desires become one with our Father.  "Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Church is not where you go once a week to hear a sermon and walk away feeling you have somehow honored God by your presence! We are the church, as believers in Christ, be it any day of the week but for most we are at best luke warm.  Nothing will turn out in joy for our lives if it does not line up with our Father's will. We desperately need to let this sink in and understand it; for if we do not, depression will, and it will add fuel to the fire for disastrous results. We must renew our minds in the truth of God's word or we will not know where or how to run to Jesus and live.  Renew, Renew, Renew! Let truth become the truth you live and we can throw all those antidepressants away!  Sounds easy when you write it on paper, the hard part is the lie we believe and that is -  surrender is hard; surrender means to give up and we have been taught in this world that to succeed we must never give up!  Sweet surrender / never give up! May I suggest one thing only that we never give up, our determination to surrender all!  Then we will understand the answer to our prayers  for God will have helped us through knowing Him alone.  "God would grant through the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man." Ephesians 3:16

Father our strength, security, wisdom, and hope all come from You alone, may we realize our true desire is knowing You and may we be obedient to act on this desire and get alone with You, constantly renewing our minds so Your thoughts may become ours.  In Jesus' Name I pray amen.

Love to all in Christ Jesus C:)