Today’s Verse:
I am dressed in garments of praise, not the spirit of depression
(Isaiah 61:3).
In Context: The Good
News, Isaiah 61: 1-3 (New Life Version)
The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has
chosen me to bring good news to poor people. He has sent me to heal those with
a sad heart. He has sent me to tell those who are being held and those in
prison that they can go free. He has sent me to tell about the year of the
Lord’s favor, and the day our God will bring punishment. He has sent me to
comfort all who are filled with sorrow. To those who have sorrow in Zion I will give
them a crown of beauty instead of ashes. I will give them the oil of joy
instead of sorrow, and a spirit of praise instead of a spirit of no hope. Then
they will be called oaks that are right with God planted by the Lord that He
may be honored.
When I read this verse it reminds me of an awesome Bible
study I did several years ago when I was still on the island. It is called Self-Confrontation,
and it is a very intense study that not only causes you to look very closely at
yourself and your own life, but it also provides life application and Biblical
advice for addressing specific problem areas, and depression is one of
them. It took me most of the day
yesterday to figure out the verse and study where I had learned about how to
deal with depression. I started by looking up verses on depression on the Internet,
which usually works to jog my memory because I can quickly find the verse I am
looking for this way, but for depression, I had no such luck. There were an
abundance of encouraging verses and advice for dealing with depression
Biblically, but nothing like what had touched me and made so much sense as what
I had learned in Self-Confrontation.
To renew your mind in the area of depression, the verse for
today says to dress in garments of praise. To me, this means look up, focus on
God, and sing. Seriously. Music almost
always makes me feel better, and I don’t necessarily mean church music,
although that’s usually a good choice. Listening to an uplifting song or just a
favorite song often makes me feel better.
Of course, for most, this might only work in the case of a slight down
mood. In terms of more serious feelings
of depression, that’s where the verses and teachings associated with the
self-confrontation course spring to my mind.
So, the verse I was trying to remember is this:
If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And
if you do not do well, sin is crouching at your door; and its desire is for
you, but you must master it (Genesis 4:7).
The principle taught here is based on the fact that in our
world we often treat only the symptoms of a problem (or feelings of depression)
and don’t really “do” anything to resolve the issue permanently. This verse is telling us that in order to
stop feelings depressed we need to get up and get to work, take care of our
responsibilities, and our “feelings” (or countenance) will also be lifted
up. I had never looked at depression
this way before I took the course. The
cure for depression is to get about the business of your life. This may sound too simple, but it makes sense
to me. If you are busy taking care of
your responsibilities, you do not have time to wallow in depressed feelings. For those of your who have been through bouts
of depression, this is not to downplay the seriousness of the condition, it’s
just a small snippet of what is explained in great detail in the course, but
it’s more than this blog is intended to cover.
You may click on the link to the course to find out more.
The bottom line for the renewing the mind focus of this blog
is that renewing our minds often means finding a brand new perspective on how
to solve a problem or issue that is bugging us, even if it means looking at
ourselves as part of the problem first and what we can DO to solve it. After
all, that’s my focus for the blog this year, to get about the business of doing,
living, and finding an active purpose in my world, not just writing about
it.
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