Hope
In A Hurting World
"Why are you so downcast, O my
soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise
him, my Savior and my God" (Psalm 43:5).
Hope, for many, is as futile as the
philosophy in a "Peanuts" comic strip which showed Linus and Charlie
Brown leaning on a fence, talking.
Linus says, "I guess it's wrong to be worrying about tomorrow, maybe we
should think only about today." Charlie Brown interrupts him to say,
"No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get
better!" Once in a while you run into the exception. Presbyterian author
and minister, David A. Redding, tells of their oldest Presbyterian elder who,
at the age of 103, took out a three-year subscription to a magazine. And it
turned out that his hope was not in vain, for the man lived to read the last
issue of that subscription. Many people, instead of being hopeful, are victims
of hopelessness.
Some of the world's most sensitive
people have been susceptible to depression. People like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, and Abraham
Lincoln suffered from it. Two of the best preachers of this century, Harry
Emerson Fosdick and J. Wallace Hamilton, fought depression. Winston Churchill
waged a lifelong battle against depression, which he called "my black
dog." Even the great reformer, Martin Luther, got depressed. Once he said,
"For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I
trembled in all my members. Christ was wholly lost to me. I was shaken by
desperation and blasphemy of God!" The truth is, we all are depressed to
some degree, at some time. Perhaps not to the extremes I have just mentioned,
but we get to feeling low, useless, worthless, nervous, apathetic, no-account,
worried, or just plain "blue." We call it having a "bad
day."
Dear Abby, in her column, listed some
portents of a bad day: "You know it's going to be a rotten day when you
wake up face down on the pavement.
You know it's going to be a bad day when your birthday cake collapses from the
weight of the candles. You know it's not going to be a good day when you put
both contact lenses in the same eye." Low days hit us all: even religious
people, even Christians, even good, God-loving people, people like Elijah, the
prophet of God in this scripture. God brought Elijah out of it, and by
remembering the story we can learn how to be restored to health and the high
spirits of hope. Elijah, you recall, had that famous contest on Mount Carmel
with the prophets of Baal. Each would build an altar for their god and then a
sacrifice would be made. The god who answered by fire, consuming the sacrifice,
would be declared "the God!" All day long the prophets of Baal
prayed, without result, to their gods, but at eventide Elijah prayed his
relatively short prayer and God answered by fire! What a high day it was for
the prophet of God! His spirits were at an all-time high; he would never be
"down" again! But it isn't many hours until Jezebel, the queen, is
hard on his heels. She loved the prophets of Baal, and was angry at their defeat,
and sent word to the prophet that she was out to get him, to kill him. Elijah
reacted in fear and ran, ran a day's journey into the wilderness, sat down
under a broom tree, and cried out to God in despair, "Let me die. I'm not
better than my fathers, let me die." (You have felt that way, too. High
and happy one day and the next low, blue, and strangely defeated.) This lesson
of Elijah gives us a valuable clue as to why we become depressed.
1. Reason For Depression
Dr. Paul
Tournier recalls the remark his young son made one day. It was a rather
philosophical comment. He said, "Everything's always okay, except for
something." Life does seem to be that way sometimes. There always seems to
be "something" we would like to have different. As an African proverb
puts it, "The trouble with finding ivory is that there is always an
elephant attached to it."One reason for our depression is that sometimes
we expect too much of ourselves. Elijah thought he was all alone, and that he
was after all, not so important anyway. He said, "Let me die. I'm not
better than my fathers." We think we have failed God, or said the wrong
thing, or that we don't matter to anyone. It is so easy to compare ourselves
with others and then decide we are useless.
2. Remedy For Depression
A dean at
Princeton University said one of his boys found a record of a Beethoven sonata,
bored a hole about a half-inch off-center, and played the record from the hole.
It was the same record, but the music sounded like the cackling of a thousand
Walt Disney witches. A life that is not God-centered, God-surrendered, and
God-focused won't make music, only noise. The psalmist found that was his
solution too. He cried out, "Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so
disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior
and my God" (Psalm 43:5). It is expectantly waiting for the things from
God that faith has already promised. As you worship, as you read the Word, as
you pray, you will begin to realize how much God cares about you. You'll know
you are not alone in your problem, that you are not fighting this battle by
yourself. The first thing to do with your problem is to go to God, run to him,
and be assured that he loves you, and understands your pain. As you listen to
him -- when you pray and read the Bible -- you will hear, as did Elijah, the
still small voice of God. God has promised that "in quietness and
confidence shall be your strength." God has said, "Be still and
know."
3. Restoration from Depression
Elijah
started out so depressed he wanted to die, but when we last see him, the Record
says, "And Elijah went by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings 2:11).
Instead of death, Elijah got a translation. Talk about an all-time high! Like
Enoch, he never did die; he was taken to heaven alive. Such is the hope of the
Christian. Jesus said, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never
die." When we trust God, the
ultimate answer will follow. We can put
our hope in Him.
Terry
Risser
Consider reading the Word today:
Copyright 2014- Terry Risser
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