It’s hard for me to read Paul’s words without wincing, “Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.” (2 Corinthians 11:24–25)
Read MoreCategory Archives: Encouragement & Healing
Three Timely Lessons for God’s Servants
In recent posts, I have written about God’s servants feeling used and unappreciated, experiencing undeserved disrespect and resentment, and having hidden greed—a desire to be rewarded. From these very real and common perils, there emerge at least three timely lessons for all of us to remember.
Read MoreGood Will Come
As a pastor, counselor, and seminary chancellor, I have often found myself in an unpopular spot. An individual who has come to me pours out his or her soul. And God very clearly leads me to confront or point out a few specifics that the person finds rather painful to hear, not to mention accept.
Read MoreDealing with Disrespect and Resentment
A man named Naaman was a high-ranking Syrian soldier. He was influential, wealthy, proud—a man of dignity, courage, patriotism, and military clout. There was only one problem: the man had leprosy. Through a chain of interesting events, Naaman was led to Elisha for cleansing from his dread disease (2 Kings 5:1–14).
Read MoreSeven Impossibilities Jesus Made Possible
Impossible! Has this word crossed your lips lately as you peer at an unsolvable problem? The dictionary defines impossible as “incapable of being done, attained, or fulfilled: insuperably difficult.”1Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed., ed. Frederick C. Mish, (Springfield, Mass: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2008), s.v. “Impossible.” So, what’s your “insuperably difficult” circumstance? Perhaps an adult child […]
Read MoreAsking God for Help
In 142:5–6, David asked the Lord to change his circumstances: to deal justly with his persecutors and to honor His promise to make David king. But he also recognized the greater need for God to change his state of mind. He asked to be released from the mental, emotional prison of depression. Then his song takes a dramatic turn. It’s unlikely his attitude had changed before completing the hymn.
Read MoreConfessing Despair
David feels enveloped or wrapped up in his depression, so much so his spirit feels faint and feeble. In the middle of confessing his darkest feelings of hopelessness, he acknowledges that God knows everything, even the thoughts and emotions he has not shared with any other person. David then adds that things on the outside of the cave are as depressing as on the inside. Traps were laid by Saul and his men. Spies were everywhere. He was a marked man.
Read MoreOpening to God
The raw emotion of David’s prayer in Psalm 142 comes through clearly in his choice of words. In his Cave of Adullam, the beleaguered future king struggled with depression and shrieked heavenward.
I used to wonder why we ever needed to utter words in prayer since God already knows all our thoughts (Psalm 139:4). Then one day I stumbled across Hosea 14:1–2.
Read MoreCrying Aloud from the Darkness
The four hundred were an unorganized, inefficient, depressed mob without a leader, so they attached themselves to David. Picture the scene in your mind. With a little imagination you could see how depressed he must have been. Surely he sighed as he thought, What now? or Why me? In the depth of distress, having reached the end of his rope, David talked with his Lord about his desperate situation.
Read MoreAn Abysmal Cave
Who hasn’t struggled with those demoralizing seasons of dark sadness? Everyone suffers from grief and sorrow from time to time. But depression is a different matter. Like a disease, it’s very common, but it’s not “normal.” Depression is an extended state of mind characterized by acute sadness that most likely will not go away by itself. It needs attention.
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