2 Words in 1

 

Depression

In the Christian world, we often talk about God’s power, His character, and His commands.

We’re very familiar with hearing about what God wants from us, how He wants us to live, and who He wants us to be. However, despite the fact we are made in His image, we forget He is also an emotionally complex God.

He does not experience emotions the same way we do, because He is not limited as we are and has not experienced the brokenness of sin. But the Bible refers to many instances where God felt everything from compassion to rage, joy to grief, amusement to jealousy.

So, perhaps you’ve never asked yourself how He feels specifically about YOU. You may instantly respond with the automatic answer of love, and that would be true. But what else?

How do you think He feels about your hurt, and the situations that led to it?

Knowing that He sees every action and every thought you’ve ever had, how do you think He felt about you in your darkest moments of sin, past or present?

What do you think God feels toward you right now?

Most of the time when we are struggling through depression, we either feel that God doesn’t care about our hurt, or that He does to a point but cares more about the “lesson” He’s trying to teach us. With either perspective, we rob Him of His compassionate heart and His powerful emotional connection to us.

It’s difficult to understand what emotion looks like on an invisible, perfect, and all-powerful Being, which is why we look at Jesus – God in the flesh – to give us a portrait of our Maker.

One of the first and most beautiful descriptions of Jesus called Him “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”

Two lines further, we see why – “He took up our pain and bore our sorrow.”

This isn’t a God who tells us to grin and bear it because He has a plan. This is a God whose heart breaks with ours, a God who does not stand above us shaking His head at our mess, but enters into the mud and heaviness with us.

How could real, unconditional love do anything less?

So go ahead. Ask God how He feels about you and what you’re going through, and know that His response will be tender because His heart does break with ours.

“He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed…..
….. Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains!
For the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy on His afflicted,” Isaiah 53:3-5, 49:13.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8.

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd,” Matthew 9:36.

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Daily Encouragement

All the glory of marriage shines in these simple words which describe God himself bringing the woman to the man.

This is the justification for the married state, the supreme reason why “Marriage should be honoured by all” (Hebrews 13:4), for marriage is ordained by God.

The initiative is divine and provides the foundation for the relationship: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh,” (Genesis 2:24).

Herein lies the true source of satisfaction in marriage.

The union is secure and permanent, because it is the work of God. Husband and wife are no longer two but one, because the LORD has joined them together, (Matthew 19:6).

The joys of such a relationship – physical, mental and spiritual – come from his gracious hand. Husband and wife know they were made for one another. Together they see their children as “a heritage from the LORD,” (Psalm 127:3).

This word from Genesis should shape the expectations of the unmarried. “A prudent wife (or husband) is from the LORD,” (Proverbs 19:14).

Happy is the young man who looks to the Lord’s hand for such a gift; happy is the young woman who clasps that hand in order to be led to the man of his appointing, (Genesis 2:22).

 

~ Gail Manizak

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Gail Manizak of The Power and Presence Ministry, is all about encouraging the Body of Christ as a Ministry of Intercession and contending for our communities, as a House of Prayer.

 

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