Month: April 2017

Psalm 86:1,3-7 “Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I call to You all day long. Bring joy to Your servant, for to You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

You are forgiving and good, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to You, for You will answer me.

(11-13) Teach me Your way, O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear Your Name. I will praise You, O LORD my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your Name forever. For great is Your love toward me; You have delivered me from the depths of the grave.”

I love the Psalms. They speak to me and for me as I pray through them to the Lord. This Psalm in particular really met me recently. The last month has been pretty challenging (in fact this year has been!). Part of my history includes a long, long struggle with depression. That struggle ended in the fall of 2012 when I was, in a crazy, only God could do it way, healed overnight from the depression I had had since I was 12. I had been completely free of depression until recent months.

A friend pointed out last weekend that I had gotten to the point of not empathizing well with those wrestling with depression. Honestly, I had forgotten its pain, and the many, many years when I tried every drug known to try to get relief (as well as anything else I thought might help). Instead of “mourning with those who mourn”, I have been prideful and didn’t recognize just how difficult it really is to be depressed. While it is true that we are to bring everything to the Lord, He will allow us to stay in a painful place in order to grow us and refine us.He doesn’t always heal just when we ask,but only in His perfect timing and in His perfect will.

The Lord allowed me to sink into depression recently . I felt no joy, and so much discouragement, sinking into hopelessness and a sense that the circumstances of life are just too hard.

Yesterday afternoon I went out for a long walk and cried out to the Lord. I was wrestling with an issue that has remained unresolved for a long time, an issue that was taking me to an awful level of anger and grief and feelings of hopelessness – to a belief that things will never ever change. What the Lord showed me yesterday was that I was believing that I am entitled to something different than that which He has given me. He showed me that the only thing I am really entitled to (without Jesus) is having the flesh ripped from my body as it was from His when He was flogged. What I am entitled to is mocking and shame and excruciating agony on a cross just like what He experienced.

Anything of grace and goodness – ALL things are an amazing gift from my good and gracious Lord. He reminded me that my being healed of depression was all His doing, nothing of mine. He rebuked me for my pride and for my lack of love to others in their struggles. He reminded me of Revelation 3:17 where Jesus says to the church at Laodicea (and to us!), “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But, you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

Without Jesus and His giving us His righteousness, we are all of those (I am!). Praising Jesus for Him showing me this! Praising Him for the depression I have had and the incredible lesson He has given me through it. Praising Him for His wonderful love and mercy – that He really is my good, good Father Who loves me enough to discipline and rebuke me. (Revelation 3:19)

Just as He says in David’s Psalm above, He has answered me in my day of trouble – just as He promised He would. I am praising Him that He is the promise-keeping Lord of the universe!!! He has given me back joy, and has brought me back to a place of gratitude for ALL that He has given me and has allowed. Romans 8:28 (another promise!) “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

Truly, He is our Good Shepherd – watching over us, loving us, leading us, providing for us, and disciplining us when we so desperately need it. I am so grateful for His rescue of me – that He loved me enough to redeem me and make me His.

From “The Making of a Leader” by J. Robert Clinton

“God is not in as big of a hurry as you and I are. He is more interested in shaping you and me first. Submission is an essential leadership lesson.

A quote from Andrew Murray (South African Christian writer) about submission in “The Making of a Leader”:

1. He brought me here. It’s by His will I am in this straight place. In that fact I will rest.
2. He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child.
3. Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn.
4. In His good time, He will bring me out again – how and when only He knows. So let me say: I am here by God’s appointment, in His keeping, under His training, and for His time.

J. Robert Clinton writes a bit later in a letter he includes in his book to a young leader…. You are in a hurry to get on with ministry. Wait on the LORD. He will lead in a plain path in His time. He also wrote:

God prepares by isolation….

You don’t know this part of my/our story, but God plucked us out of Seattle (where we had lived all of our adult lives) and put us too far away to “return to Egypt” (back home). Last summer, it was crazy. I couldn’t go “home” (although I tried a couple of times and He made insurmountable road blocks). My friends dropped off the map – not returning calls, emails or texts. Ben was busy and often away. I did a lot of long, long runs alone, and what happened was that Jesus became my running/life companion for that season. The LORD isolated me from home, friends and even family… crazy lonely at first, but Jesus truly did become my “all in all” during that time.

The LORD is so faithful, and He gives us just what we need when we need it. I needed to read the above…. what a good God He is.