Thinking about Elijah and
taking on board that it's within our experience to hit low points, I remembered
there are instructions on how to deal with the lows. We do need to make a
distinction between seasonal lows, the depression caused by illness and the
circumstantial lows that come through responding to an event or trigger.
I'm not sure depression as an illness has easy fixes, but lows based on
circumstance can be helped.
In Psalm 77 the writer was in exile. Crying out to God was leading
nowhere and this was right for a time as God allowed the captive nation to
realise their need for their LORD. The text of Psalm 77 starts with some
very strong language. Even though there was a heart wrenched cry for
help, the writer says they were not comforted. As a young Christian I heard
so many sermons saying that Jesus would be at the end of every prayer.
This was not the experience in Psalm 77. The writer thinks of God
and groaned, he was too troubled to speak. Kept awake, he looks for
answers, things that may quench his thirst after God.
Then the Psalmist does what we all tend to do when it is a dry time. He
thought back to what worked for him before the exile. He was a song
writer and this is where he flourished, serving God. It appears that this only
prompted a series of strange questions that reflect the faithlessness we display in low times:
7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
(the Lord is all accepting!)
Will he
never show his favor again?
(the Lord shows favour)
8 Has his unfailing love vanished
forever? (how can an unfailing love vanish?)
Has his
promise failed for all time?
(how can God's promise fail?)
9 Has God forgotten to be
merciful?
(he
IS merciful, he can't forget!)
Has he in
anger withheld his compassion?” (God is compassionate!)
This was a cul de sac.
Like us at times we reach dead ends because we focus on things that we
have been good at, sentimental times in the past, maybe a formula we thought
made 'it' happen or a bunch of people with whom we once experienced something.
Although sometimes helpful, none of these can help us raise our faith
levels and get us out of a low time.
The psalmist remembers to
consider the deeds of the Lord, when he did great works. He dwells on the
amazing miracles and begins praising God and recounting the great act of saving
which was central to the Old Testament believers. The passage through the
Red Sea is remembered and all the amazing things that occurred in setting his
people free from Egypt. We are told here that we can stir ourselves up.
We can raise ourselves up from the lows.
For us, we can remember the
Red Sea and those incredible miracles but we are in the New Covenant with an
ever more amazing miracle. Jesus saves us from the captivity of sin and
death by his death at Calvary. He was raised from the dead and ascended
to be at the right hand of the father in heaven. There is a man ALIVE
in heaven!
Because we are so attached
to this world it is often difficult to be amazed by the finished work.
This is where it is useful to remember scripture. One of my favourite verses
based upon Jesus finished work is this:
Romans
8:37 No,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor
demons,[d] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will
be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Be encouraged.
Gary Ward
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