Depression Meets Jesus

I won't pretend I was the greatest Robin Williams fan of all time, or that he revolutionized the way I see movies. Honestly, I may be in the minority, but I never enjoyed his appearances on Conan, or his standup routine. I thought he was too sporadic and unorganized in his comedy routine. I enjoyed the more subtle and straight forward comics.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed him as an actor. The movies he starred in are easily recalled as favorites and I think he was brilliant. I think Hook stands out as the one I remember the most. I also enjoyed his voice as the genie in Aladdin.

After the news of his passing, the outlets of social media flooded my feeds with sadness and shock. A phrase that was stated over and over again was something I struggle with when it comes to individuals with mental illness such as depression.

"If you are struggling, please get help"

This plea is almost always from individuals who are not themselves walking in a mental illness. This is it stated as a way to ask those who are struggling to see the conditions and circumstances, read between the lines and get better. The intentions are meant to be for the good of the individual suffering. However, individuals who suffer from depression and other mental illnesses don't see life so easily.

In light of this tragedy, my perspective is that we live life differently and hopefully, as a societal whole, we could alter the influence of mental illnesses such as depression. Instead of pleading with someone to get help, if you see or know someone battling, YOU step in and do something, say something, be involved. Break the unwritten ethical code and intrude on someone's life. Change the course of the normal and everyday routine, burst the individualistic bubble that people with depression live in. Stop waiting for someone to ASK for help! Be so involved yourself, that someone who suffers, or is plagued by chronic depression will not have room to entertain the thoughts that would lead them to hopelessness.

You may not have had access to Robin Williams' life and been able to communicate to him, or be his friend. That's not what this is about. This is about the thousands who suffer everyday around you, with thoughts of hopelessness in which it is NOT too late for them.

Self-help talk may last for a little bit, but it doesn't ultimately connect someone to the real issue and reason mental illness exists. In the book of Matthew Jesus summons His disciples, gives them authority to heal every kind of sickness and disease (10:1). Suicide eventually becomes a solution for many who suffer. A logical conclusion for many is to end the functioning of the entity creating the problem...the brain. There is a better solution. God has sent His Son, that we might live through Him. 1 John 4:12 says that no one has seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected. You, me, we are the visual of God for people to see. If you are abiding in Christ you will be the very picture of God for someone else. Healing, wholeness, restoration, reconciliation, these are ALL God's business and I want to be about God's business.

I personally could do better about reflecting this truth for those I interact with daily. Please don't resolve your level of helping people by making a statement of "get help...if you need it," instead, be so involved that
YOU see the warning signs,
YOU recognize the disease,
YOU become part of the solution for the healing needed in someone else.

they don't love you like i love you

the first place we read jesus discussing love is concerning loving those who are your enemies in matthew 5:43-48.

love your enemies
pray for those who persecute you

i find it interesting that jesus reminds us of the fact that god sees the unrighteous and

still CHOOSES to cause the sun to rise for them.
still CHOOSES to cause the rain to fall for them.

god does not choose to express his love ONLY those who love him back; god does not only reach out to greet those who are wanting to be in the family. god does reach for those who are not in his family. god clearly illustrates that he CHOOSES to love, even those who don’t choose to love him. you will never find in scripture an exception to this idea. god is always loving those, even if they choose not to love him (we can argue about what is just with love in another post).

it is hard to choose to love those who do not love back. one thing christians can do, when found in a place of fighting or resisting the choice to love, is search the heart for any areas of unforgiveness. at one point, in all our lives, we have been offended at something someone has said or done to us. christ references this in matthew 24:12. lawlessness will increase, wrongs will be committed, and in turn most people’s love will grow cold. a significant barrier to the ability to choose love is a heart that has grown cold and hard due to lawlessness or injustice committed.

before you can choose to love you must choose to forgive

ultimately what gives love its wonderfully divine power is not mutual at all, but rather, unconditional, as our heavenly father has displayed many times over. jesus described this kind of love wondering what good is it, only loving someone who loves you back?!?!

you life will be changed by choosing to love even your enemies and those who wish you harm.

oh no, i got to keep on moving

i have a really hard time forcing myself to stop working, or at least, thinking about work. i am constantly wondering, "what could i be doing that would build?" this plague is both a curse and a blessing in my perspective.

it really becomes challenging at times to force myself into playing or reading books with my boys. those things are without a doubt some of the most important quality time activities i could be doing with my kids. and honestly, when i am outside the moment, i am thinking how much i should be doing more with my boys.

proverbs 12:24 says the diligent find freedom in their work; the lazy are oppressed by work (msg). i would love to find the balance in all of this. the ability to turn off just enough to know that i am actually getting more done than if i kept on and wore myself out. this requires someone else. someone who is better than i am and someone who has more experience in life than i do.

that person is...

jesus

paul says in colossians, "everything got started in him and finds his purpose in him." this means that leaning on him isn't something i have to try, in order to find wholeness, it means, it is something i must do if i want my life to have peace.

when i am playing trains with my boys...peace
when i am reading books to them...peace
when i am praying with pastors and leaders...peace
when i am leading a congregation in worship...peace

there is no substitute and no replacement. jesus occupies the only place as the sustainer of creation without peers. if you, like me, struggle to find the off switch, rest in the unfailing peace of jesus. he too, is able to understand what it means to have a mind that is desiring success at every venture and the importance of every minute detail of our lives. the spirit will lead you into freedom and liberation in your work as you lean on him.

what i have found to help with a sense of peace is...

recognize the activity in your life that needs to be on the shelf. the things you need to say no to, at this particular time. i have heard it over and over and over, "just because it is good, doesn't mean it is god." learn to say no to things.

surround yourself with encouragement...not yes men. find people who know how to find productivity and success and can properly evaluate patterns to righteously correct or reprove your thinking. if proverbs, the book of wisdom, is to be taken seriously, we must then long for correction and counsel. this will prove to reveal discipline which is the key to growth.

most importantly, develop a pattern of breaking away from the noise (friends, internet, phones, etc) and finding your spot of deep and thought provoking intimacy with god. he is the most intimately acquainted entity of your life in existence. scripture is clear, there is not a place you can go that he is not there. jesus broke away from the crowds to be alone, rose early for prayer, he knew, and teaches us the value of actively separating our minds from the noise. in this time you will gain the secrets of god for your life; finding those very things to be at peace with in you working life (relationships, decisions, activities, etc).

at the heart, if we can be honest, the stress that accompanies work or the inability to turn off reveals the nature of our hearts. we want to be in control, if we want control than that is definitely a bad thing. the lord loves to reveal the areas of our hearts that will be most detrimental in our relationship with him. pride leads to idolatry and this will ruin.

take the nuggets but give me jesus

weapons of warfare are not typically reserved to a particular entity involved in the combat. you will not find knives given to the bad guys while the good guys are given guns and vice versa. this is what makes super heros so great and admired because they have this transcending element that enables them to not require instruments made by human hands in order to defeat their opponent (for all of us followers of the way say amen). we all love the defeat of the enemy and the triumph of good against the odds.

with this understood, you can be assured, if you are wanting to engage in combat, there is a strong chance that your enemy will likewise be using the same weapon that you are using to fight the battle against you. you really shouldn't be surprised by this. in fact, you're a fool to suspect otherwise.

this is why as a follower of christ and a believer in his sanctifying work on the cross, paul writes to the members of the ephesian church urging them to fight using a different weapon because the adversary is of another realm (ephesians 6:12-18).

there is warfare taking place and thus weapons are used to engage in this struggle. i am challenged daily to ask myself which weapons am i using to fight this war.

as a citizen of the greatest nation on the face of the earth i am proud to study the historical body of work that outlines how my nation has gained what it now possesses. much of what i have is because men fought, poured blood, gave family and property, in order to make freedom a reality for themselves and generations that followed. this cause is great and daily under-appreciated.

however great the cause is it still falls short of divine. it represents a great shadow, but fails to accomplish my souls greatest need. it fails to meet anyone's greatest need of redemption. the constitution, the bill of rights, or any other document will ALWAYS fall short. a culture war might be won by such a document. a battle to back a particular legal position might appropriately be able to utilize the principles in ink of our great founding fathers and their handiwork. using the language of "rights as an american" is NOT language used in the kingdom of god. in fact you might find the citizen of the kingdom of god standing opposite, as it is outlined in matthew 5.

you will not be able to fight a spiritual battle ever with the constitution of government. even if it is the government of the greatest nation on this earth.

1. imagine if every one of those individuals who went into chick-fil-a to get food to support mr cathy's right would have given even half of what they spent at chick-fil-a to their local church?

2. imagine if the church had the traffic problems chick-fil-a had with people wrapped around the building and officers there to direct the flow of traffic into the parking lot.

3. imagine if we could love righteousness as much as we love chick-fil-a sandwiches (or if you are me, those wonderful nuggets).

4. imagine if we could faithfully minister to the lost as boldly as we stand up for our "rights." regardless if they want jesus and his definition of marriage or not.

this isn't a john lennon song, this is watching my nation, from the outside in (living in belgium), mobilize for a cause they believe in. i am confused as to which cause they were even fighting...free speech, or immorality?

i believe the cause was free speech because...
-no one, in their right mind, would wait that long for lunch. especially in a land that hails of the fastest food provided.
-no one has changed their perspective on gay marriage today that had the same perspective as they did august 1st when they went into chick-fil-a.
-no one is going to exclusively eat at chick-fil-a the rest of their life.

i love the u.s.a and the freedoms it provides to its citizens. mr. cathy's statement and position concerning marriage is one that i share. i believe in his right to say it and think it is absurd how the idea of tolerance is out of balance. i also EXPECT the lost people of the united states to approach christianity using the instrument of law and the constitution. therefore i expect in the arena of same sex marriage for them to present the case through the angle of civil rights. that is how immorality becomes justifiable to the lost...through the law (isn't that twisted?). but i do not wish to engage in a war with lost people using carnal weapons because what it accomplishes is the bolstering of more pride. please don't see this is as condemnation against the many who plea for a righteous government and intercede on behalf of our president, congressman, and those who work to keep jesus as the center of this nation in the political field.

if we are going to fight morality with the law we are ALL condemned. that is why jesus came...because we couldn't fight morality with righteousness. so lets put away this carnal, american, ideology of our "rights." an action to voice/proclaim your right to have rights and the opposite side of this particular battle of immorality both carry the same heart issue...pride and idolatry.

when i get back to the states i am going to have chick-fil-a nuggets and i will also enjoy a cup of coffee from starbucks, but not together, thats gross.

short foolishness with no room for cream

there is a new starbucks in belgium. it is located in the central train station in downtown brussels. i have taken the boys on the train to meet up with liz on her way home from work a few times. it is good for the boys and for us to venture into our american embassy. the last time we did this i went into the cafe area to get our drinks while liz stayed on the outer part of the store. there is ALWAYS a line. this one wasn't too bad but as i was standing there waiting i noticed a tall, nicely dressed man standing to my right and i was getting the impression he was trying to cut. in my mind i was thinking, "who does this guy think he is?" i certainly was not dressed to impress and that fear of trying to be intimidated by a "business" man was creeping in my head. he sensed the tension and proceeded to tell me that he was in line before but had forgotten what his friend had wanted and so he tried to quickly return to his spot.

yeah, i wasn't born yesterday, get the heck outta here into the back of the line!!!

no, i didn't say that, i wanted to but then a sudden rush came over me..."buy his and his friends coffee." wait, what? again i felt it, "buy their drinks." i then asked the guy what his friend wanted and he told me. i said to him "well, let me buy your friends drink and yours." he bursted out in laughter, and when i say bursted that is an understatement. IT. WAS. LOUD. i thought for split second to decline the offer simply based on this obnoxious, loud laugh but i couldn't. i told him i was serious and i wanted to bless him and his friend. he said ok.

he then asked me where i was from and where i was going. i told him i lived in belgium and moved here to be a missionary. he said, "oh really." i said i wanted to train young people in the word of god. he said, "which god?" i said, "the god the bible talks about." he casually said, "ah, but they are different." i told him we could talk more when we were able to sit and enjoy our coffee.

he confessed to wanting to be a missionary when he was a kid and i responded by telling him i wanted to be a navy seal. as it turned out he was a lawyer and his friend was a mathematician. so here i was going to try and reveal the truth of jesus to two guys who would love to debate faith and justice. we didn't ever really debate but we did talk about faith and god. i told him my only intent in buying their drinks was because i wanted to show them an act of generosity in the name of jesus christ (i speculate that being a lawyer he didn't need my charity for the sake of cultural enjoyment). a seed was sown, and i felt at peace in my spirit as to where i left it.

i realize his fault, as mine on many occasion which is not the pursuit of knowledge, but the love of knowledge over everything else. sometimes i catch myself loving knowledge and even in the moments when i need to be reading scripture as the food for my soul i will venture off sometimes i start to think how great a teaching "this" could be, or "that." all in all, at the end of the day i am only as smart as the next guy who walks in the room; my knowledge is very, very, very, limited. it is hard to admit this but someone will always be more educated. that is the struggle for so many; pursuing knowledge until they literally kill themselves. i will leave you with this...for those who love knowledge so much.

1 corinthians 1:27 - ...god has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise...

i just hope i was foolish enough for jesus to shame every ounce of wisdom those men thought they had.