A Prayer for Depression & A Biblical Strategy for Living Strong
In 2020, I wrote a prayer that captures, in abbreviated form, what I often say to the Lord when a depressive episode envelops me. See if you identify with the symptoms I describe in the opening paragraph. Determine if you want to ask the same things of God that I...
Is My “Public” Christian Life Eclipsing My Private World?
What happens on the inside is far more important than external attractiveness. In the late spring of 1999, I was the teacher of record for a European tour that offered college academic credit for recent high school grads. The students had just received their...
From Disappointment to Depression to Delight
A Story Showing How My Grievous Disappointment Became God's Gracious Appointment Have you experienced a setback or disappointment so painful that it broke your heart and spawned tears? Have you thought you were following God's leading to a new business or ministry...
15 BIBLE PROMISES TO ENCOURAGE YOU WHEN YOU’RE DEPRESSED
Why do you need encouragement? What affliction or reason for discouragement is threatening your joy? Can you identify with any of the following factors? Things that Generate Discouragement *Inadequacy for a called task or responsibility? *Weariness of mind, body...
Do You Feel Depressed About Being Weak?
For most of my 71 years, I've bucked against certain frailties and limitations. I've viewed my weaknesses as something that must be overcome, feeling frustrated when, decade after decade of my pilgrimage, I still exhibited those deficiencies or imperfections....
5 Ways To Listen To A Sermon
Do I listen to my pastor's sermons, or do I just hear them? To listen implies engaging the mind and processing the preacher's words. To hear means the sound waves are entering my ear canal but I'm not concentrating on them. What a privilege I’ve enjoyed to take...
A MESSAGE FROM THE GRAVE: Can God’s Blessings Become A Snare?
Sobering Lessons from the Ravi Zacharias Scandal (Part 1) Stimulating lectures on university campuses serving as bastions of a liberal worldview. Stirring debates with prominent atheists and scholarly representatives of other faiths. Soul-strengthening sermons...
HOMELESS: We Know More Homeless People Than We Think
There is more than one type of homelessness. In cities across the United States, homeless individuals sleep on park benches, under bridges and on scraps of cardboard stretched out on sidewalks. In the suburbs of my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina, on busy...
Who? Me Comfort?
How has God put you together to encourage or to comfort others? When someone is needy or hurting, do you consistently give the gift of your physical presence, even when you are unsure what to say? Do you allow your nearness to express what mere words cannot? Does...
Lamenting Depression: Can I Tell God What I Really Feel?
The Psalms of Lament in the Old Testament are special to me. They offer a language in which to address God honestly about pain. A "lament" is taking our pain to God and expressing our raw emotions. Faith isn't the absence of grief, doubt or despair; rather, we...
Depression: Symptoms, Prevalence and Causes
Late in 2020 I produced a 26.5 page, single-spaced document on depression for a strategic parachurch ministry. It wasn't a document they would ever use "as is," but it contained research as well as my own reflections, rooted in my study of the topic as well as...
Is Throwing a Bible Verse At Depression A Fix-It-All?
I had slept more than usual the previous night, so I couldn't blame insomnia for the lethargy of mind, body and spirit that blanketed me last Thursday. It's how depression often expresses itself. A rank hopelessness. An all-consuming despair, which I often cannot...
