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Ryan,
I have had to defend my own level of despair lately on a couple of occasions. I have been genuinely sad for all the right reasons. I have so much broken heartedness for my unsaved daughters. To watch them waste so much ability and potential and to reject my values and worse, God's values is excruciating. It saps my strength, it's changed my countenance, it's cast me down.
Some people, wanting to help, have suggested I go see a doctor for my 'depression'. I don't have depression. I am sad, I am grieving deeply for my loved ones, I KNOW why I'm sad.
Ryan, the book of Psalms contains the full spectrum of human emotion from elation and joy to sadness and fear to actually wanting to kill someone and NOT in a nice way. To be honest, I've felt all those emotions in the last 3 days.
My point is this, sadness and short seasons of despondency are not pathological responses to life - they are normal. God uses a downcast soul to transform us as much as he uses a time of jubilant worship. We are becoming like Christ, we are taking on a family resemblance to our Father. Christ learned obedience through suffering. You will not, you can not, make it through sanctification without suffering.
We get discouraged because things didn't turn out according to OUR plan. We thought it was a godly enough plan, but never the less, God's plan will take us through valleys we wouldn't even want to imagine.
We are not promised that it won't frighten, that it won't scare, that it won't cripple us. We only know that God will be with us and never turn his back on us.
We get so caught up in 'what is fair' as if we were the best judge of fairness. I have been knocked down many times, I have been weary of living, I have had my most precious commodities stripped away, but I know I deserved every hardship. I also know that I have a redeemer and that all things are possible with and through Him. Where else can we put our hope?
In the worst of times, the desert experiences, I know that God's holds all the cards and I have no choice but surrender and fall on Him. In the best of times, I gladly run to his fortress and everything seems to fall in place and make perfect sense.
Bottom line, the dark valley and the miry clay are God's plan "A", the only plan that he willed for you from the beginning. You and I are right in the middle of it. God is giving us his full attention. If anything, you may be wishing He would go fine tune someone else for a while, but this is His perfect will for you right now.
I'm praying for you Ryan. Let's share our joys and let's commiserate in our pain; this is the magnificent spiritual journey of God's own children.
Exodus 6:7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. |