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.
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..
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