WATCHWORD:
I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 17:6-8
Meditation:
Not a One-Way Street
Different degrees of depression are common to all of us. What may be different is how we deal with that dark time. There were times when I immersed myself in depression, covered myself with self-pity, and wondered if I had value of any kind. Can you relate?
Maybe you’re sitting alone in your home, sad. Maybe you’re alienated from parts of your family and feel that loneliness. Maybe you lost your spouse and feel that alone-ness so intensely that it brings you down. Perhaps all of this builds up to the point where you realize that you are depressed and you have to do something about it.
One way that I have dealt with my “downtime” was to free associate, to write it down, and let it all out; all the self-pity, all the demeaning things, all the wonder if I have any value at all. Just put it down on paper, all of it. I would just dump all the negative thoughts onto a page. Talking to a trusted friend, is another way to cope. Back in those days when I had a dog and a place for long walks, we would go together, and I would share my pain. Sophy always seemed to understand and smile, but then that is what Goldens do. There are times when each of those seemed to help.
It was during one of those free association exercises where I write without a lot of thinking, no editing, nor concern for spelling or grammar, just a dumping on the page, that I came across an interesting sentence, that brought me up short: “You are a child of God, and your faith is not a one-way street.” I paused and looked at that idea, and thought about it, as tears came.
Why tears? Look at that sentence. “You are a child of God”. You are God’s child! We knew it at one level, now we accept it at another. We am not alone! We have value. The Almighty is our friend. You have an amazing future because you are part of the family of God. When those kinds of thoughts come into your mind in the midst of a self-pity party, that party’s over and a new party begins, and what a celebration! I am a child of God!
You begin to realize that your faith is based on beliefs, and those beliefs lead to caring for another. Even a cup of water, the simplest of things can have great value and fill a need. The mark of a Christian is not the perfect attendance at church. It is not serving on committees, or reading your Bible every day. The mark of a Christian may be all of those things or maybe none of them. The mark of a Christian is reflected in the way you live, how you reach out and love others, how your focus is not on you but on how can I, Lord, serve you best.
Yes, our relationship with God is not a one-way street. It’s a loving conversation, or it’s a loving argument, or it’s a partnership of reaching out to others, of responding to the invitation to “come follow Me”, of going and doing likewise, of seeking and finding, of knocking and realizing the door opens immediately and there stands the Lord. Come child of God, serve me by serving them. Amen.
Prayer From Verse-A-Day:
Lord God, Your word is full of rich life-giving truths like this that we can offer to You in prayer; not only for ourselves, but for others as well. We praise You Lord, that You are a God who answers when we call! You hear our cries, and do not turn away from our needs. We come to You Lord as we are, because we cannot come as anything else before You: the one who knows us perfectly and sees all things. Create in us hearts that authentically desire to honor You with our lives, and to share the magnitude of Your greatness with those we meet. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
