Answers to Depression

One day as a teenager, I was feeling really depressed, I had a decision to make regarding my future and couldn’t seem to come up with an answer. Feeling very flat I asked a mature religious family friend “What is life all about, I mean what is the point of it?” and I expected to get a helpful answer from her experience, but she just smiled and in a sort of sympathetic tone of voice said “Oh dear heart”, that was all, nothing else. Now that wasn’t very helpful.

To-day there are lots of teenagers who get depressed. I think life expects so much and they find it hard to cope; some are bullied like I was, some just feel inadequate and so on. It isn’t just a teenager’s problem either. There are many marriages and defacto relationships breaking up too, leaving at least one partner depressed. Age is no exemption; I often talk to older folk who are having difficulty coping as either their husband or wife has died leaving them very much alone. Like the bird on Arnott’s biscuit pack they feel very much left out.

Many of the problems mentioned above are there because people are organising the world and ignoring God’s directions. God never meant it to be like this: Originally it was a “Garden of Eden” with everything perfect for its inhabitants who were expected to “walk with God”. Wouldn’t you know it? They weren’t satisfied and destroyed that relationship (Genesis 3:17-20). Thus we live in a world of turmoil with sinful selfishness causing unhappiness.

To rectify this mess God decided to make it possible for us to reconcile ourselves to Him (2 Corinthians 5:18) by sending Jesus to delete that sin and make it possible for us to be “Renewed in the spirit of our mind” and “have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). However this fantastic gesture by God, through Jesus, cost Jesus His earthly life, but He can now with open arms say “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11: 28) He also inspired Paul to say “don’t worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passeth understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 4:6).

To fully understand the situation and how to be overcomers  we must realise that this world is Satan’s domain now, and that Christians are people who have became “fed up” with life like it is; with all its turmoil and lack of assurance of an eternal life so have therefore entered “God’s Embassy” and asked for “Asylum”. Such “refugees” don’t get turned back like boat people either because Jesus has a “welcome mat” at the door and says (as recorded in John 6:37), “he that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out”. So we who do accept that offer now become “Citizens of the household of God”, (Ephesians 2:19), and even though we still live in the world for now, we are not left out like that parrot on the biscuit pack but “Have an Advocate with The Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” and “He shall give His angels charge over us to keep us in all our way” (Psalm 91). This is not just a theory: I speak from experience.

If your life is hampered by a “garbage bin” of hurt, unhappiness, resentment, loneliness or whatever negatives there are, then “empty it at Jesus feet” by “Casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Don’t let it build up like this one at the Mall instead kneel down and in prayer ask Him to take over your life. Then claim all the bible promises I have quoted above. That way you can say “good bye” to depressing thoughts providing you are willing to accept a reasonable amount of behavioural change. You see, The Kingdom of Heaven is just that: A Kingdom ruled by a perfect King, it is not a Democracy and it is not a Multicultural society. It is like Australia used to be in that regard, new comers have to “assimilate” and that is why God gave us the New Testament to read and learn to live by its rules before we leave these earthly bodies. Depending on what you have been doing you may have to change your appetite for certain T.V. programs for example. Sin, lust and horror are foreign to God’s Kingdom and just as Ms Corby found that people carrying drugs are not welcome in Indonesia so it is that people who want to bring their garbage into Heaven won’t make it either. So asking for God’s cleansing and then refilling our life with “garbage” is like a pig that is washed returning to its mud (2Peter 2:22). We need to constantly say “Create in me a clean heart Oh God and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10) and “Think on whatsoever things are lovely.....” (Philippians 4:8) Best wishes....Tom..