Daily devotion – depression
1Ki 19:10 So he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”
Depression….the word itself brings a cloudiness of spirit as we read it or speak it.
Elijah, after an amazing victory at Mt Carmel, our second stop on our first day of our tour in Israel, became vulnerable and frightened. Yet he had just been used by God miraculously in a great victory over the prophets of Baal.
Elijah was now in the valley of self-pity suffering the tide going out in his life that often follows victory.
I have walked this path often. Preaching and teaching God’s Word, but soon after not being in a cave, but under a cloud that I now know well that stalks often those in service to the Lord.
Even the great Apostle Paul, having taken massive strides into the vast regions of Asia and having embedded an impeccable theology that was to serve the Church for centuries – he was caught at low tide too. He freely admits this in his second letter to friends at Corinth:
2Co 1:8 For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life.
Depression just hangs around the door simply waiting to meet you once again after you have been in battle serving the Lord. You do not need to seek it, you can’t hide from it and it knows you so well.
Low tide, times of melancholy in our lives, are painful, but God allows them…for they are essential. Without low tide, the changing ocean would become a predictable boring mass of water with no connection to the moon.
Without it, there would be no need for the Elisha’s to come along and comfort and minister to an anguished Elijah…there would be no need for visionaries to fall in dependence on their faces before God….no need for the valiant Moses, Gideon’s or David’s to be reminded of their source of strength.
Depression comes thinking that it will, by its power, bring me to my knees in failure and despondency. Yes it does always bring me to my knees, but it is on my knees before my Heavenly Father that I need to come for there my depression must recoil back away from being over me as it is on my knees that the hand of God reaches out to lift my face to engage His once again.
If you are one who comes under depressions influence, instead of locking yourself away in a cave as did Elijah, fall to your knees and you will find yourself in the throne of God at the feet of Jesus.
As you do this each time depression floats over your life like a storm cloud, you will sense the call of God using that which appears oppressive to be instead His servant to call you to His throne.
Just as the Lord used the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar to stir and strengthen the heart of Israel.
Be safe in Christ!