There is Hope in Jesus for the Depressed

I wrote this last October, when I was still out of work, and starting to feel the full weight of it upon my mind and soul.  The solution, as always, is Jesus, but it's not always easy to accept for us frail human beings.  Knowing the truth and living it are often two different things:

How to hold onto God when you feel like a Jobless, Faceless Nobody

     It’s one thing to say that I’m not gonna see a loser when I look in the mirror, and instead see a cherished child of God, a Prince of the Kingdom because of God’s Grace, Jesus’ sacrifice, and my belief; yet it’s quite another to continue living it and believing it, especially when I am jobless and I have all this emotional baggage.  But that’s exactly where Satan wants me to be.  It may very well be where I am, mentally and emotionally, but it doesn’t have to define who I am or my existence.  Yet once again, I understand it’s easier to say that than to really believe it, or to know it and live it.  Humans are too often frail little things, succumbing to the lies and doubts that plague our little heads!  If writing in this journal all these years, with all these words and pictures, has taught me anything, it is that words are just that:  words.  It is life that gives them meaning.  Words aren’t answers in and of themselves.  Without life to back them up, the most profound words have no significance.  And what have I done to show for all the words I’ve written?

     This is not a good place to be, this self-doubting funk, especially when I'm trying to sell myself to potential employers.  This is again putting myself down, and Satan loves it when we do that.  It’s a continual challenge.  I feel like I’m at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, my little ropes and carbines at the ready, and Satan loves for us to have this image as well.  It is times like this you realize how simple, yet how complicated, the Christian religion can be.  I should have no problem.  I should realize there is no mountain; that instead, there is a bridge to the Father - even if I can't see it.  I should do what Indiana Jones did at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he simply had to trust that the bridge he couldn’t see was actually there, when he stuck his foot out over a precipice hundreds of feet in the air, and took a leap of faith, despite what his eyes told him, hoping that he wouldn’t plummet to his death.  And magically, a bridge was there, a fantastical optical illusion that concealed it, and Indy was able to find it and walk across it by having faith that it would be there.  If we don't have faith enough to trust God that the bridge is really there, then we need to learn to have that faith!

In "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Indy finds the bridge by having faith it would be there

     The fact is, I still sometimes question whether or not my name is really written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and I wonder if other Christians might have the same doubts, even as believers.  The Sadducees and Pharisees of Jesus' day were the faithful religious leaders of their day.  I'm sure they all thought they were beyond reproach!  And I have done some bad things in my life, things I am not proud of, as I'm sure we all have.  I’ve had some horrible thoughts too, especially towards those who I feel have wronged me, like those who let me go at my last job, and I've had these negative thoughts after I supposedly became a Christian.  It makes me feel that God must be so disappointed in me, and this is a bad place to be.  I feel like I’ve sunk very low, and I don’t like where I am.  What have I got to show for my time here on earth?  When I give an accounting for my life to God, I can only imagine hanging my head in shame, like I used to do before my human father, and it makes me feel worthless.

     Yet God doesn’t want me to have these thoughts I’m sure.  He wants me in heaven with Him because He really does love me, even though, at the same time, He might be disappointed in me and sad because He knows I haven’t made all the choices I should be making as a follower of His Word.  Am I a light for Christ?  I am fascinated by fantasy, yet I’m also a realist.  Not all people will make it, and it’s no longer up to God.  He’s done His part.  Whether we make it or not is now up to us.  But we have to accept Jesus’ sacrifice, and more than that, we have to show it by being a tree that produces fruit for the Kingdom.  And then we must all ask the obvious question:  If I am a light for Christ, just what have I produced to show it?

     I feel that, if I am going to be the man of Christ I want to be, and that I should be, I must get past all this psycho-babble rattling around in my head.  I must be able to forgive, not only others, but myself, for some of the choices I make.  To put it another way, I don't feel particularly "Christian" these days, and I shouldn’t be where I am as a “Christian” to a point where I now feel the need to put quotes around the word “Christian”.  I shouldn’t have any inkling what the fictional character of John Constantine thinks and feels, a grizzled traveler somewhere halfway between heaven and hell, but I think I do.  (And I’d probably be surprised to find out how many others may feel this same way.)

Keanu Reeves as John Constantine, stuck halfway between heaven and hell

     This is not where I want to be, in this depressed little funk, hating myself and not feeling like I matter to anyone.  It is a horrible place to be, but it is up to me to change it.  I want to get to a point where I feel I’ve moved beyond this, and that I really and truly am a man of God with no doubts.  

     But we are human beings!  We can't help but have doubts!  And then I realize that perhaps this may, in fact, be a better place to be in after all!  Pride cometh before the fall, and this is definitely not a prideful place I am in!  Feeling like you’ve made it might make you feel special, and then you have to worry about committing that deadliest of sins!  There’s a reason most men of faith have a “thorn in the flesh”, including St. Paul, and in that respect, I can relate.  Yet a thorn in the flesh must be overcome.  St. Paul could not be the saint he became if he continued to speak and to preach the word of Jesus and still continued to let that “thorn in the flesh” affect him.

     And yet in all of this, I have confidence in God, confidence to believe that perhaps one day, before Jesus returns, I will have mastered these thoughts.  And I know that even this is probably an attitude I shouldn’t have; I mean, is this something I have to really master?  Shouldn't it simply be something new I embrace as my life is lived for God?

     But at least I’m having the internal conversation and really struggling with it!  That at least still puts me on God’s road… even if my car is stalled and my tires are flat, and I’m whining because I don’t know how to fix the engine.  Many other people aren’t even on that road.  Yet the point in time when I’ll really understand what it’s all about and that I’ve made it – I really am a man of God - is when I realize, once and for all, that God has sent a limousine to pick me up.  All I need to do is get in.

…and stay in.

A Shining Light on the Road to God

I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me / And I enjoy an accolade like the rest 
And you could take my picture and hang it in a gallery of all who's who and so and so's

That used to be the best at such and such / It wouldn't matter much

I won't lie, it feels all right to see your name in lights / We all need an “Atta boy” or “Atta girl” 
In the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides the temporary trappings of this world

I want to leave a legacy / How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? 

Did I point to You enough to make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering

A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name unapologetically / And leave that kind of legacy

I don't have to look too far or too long awhile to make a lengthy list of all that I enjoy 
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile

Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy

I want to leave a legacy / How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? 
Did I point to You enough to make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name unapologetically / And leave that kind of legacy

Not well traveled, not well read, not well-to-do or well bred 

Just want to hear instead, "Well Done" good and faithful one...

            - “Legacy”

               Nichole Nordeman