Purity 269 11/19/2020
Good morning!
Today’s photo comes from the people at SUNY Oswego who recently shared
some autumn scenes around campus. This shot
was taken on the road to the college’s main entrance.
I share it because of the amazing pink and blue sky and because it is Thursday
and I love to share photos with a trail, a path, a bridge, or in this case a
road to represent progress.
We have progressed through much of the week and the weekend is just “Eddie
Murphy time” (48 hours) away and as it stands, we are a week a way from Thanksgiving.
As God’s timing is sovereign over us all, tonight’s lesson at Celebrate
Freedom just happens to be “Gratitude”.
Regardless of whether you are in recovery or not, I invite all who see
this to come out to tonight’s meeting to prepare your mind, hearts, and spirits
for next week’s feasting day. For info
on Celebrate Freedom go to: http://info.celebratefreedomrocksolidchurch.org/
The holidays are not always easy, and this year’s season will be especially
difficult for some as COVID-19 is changing the way many will celebrate. Also, I
have many friends who are going through tough times due to medical issues, financial
troubles, and sudden heartbreaking tragic losses, or are still adjusting to the
trauma of losses that are not so recent but will come to surface as the
holidays may make us feel particularly lonely.
So regardless of whether you come to our meeting or not, I want to
encourage you to go to God and make Him a part of your everyday experience. He
will never leave you or forsake you and He provides meaning, strength and love
that can help us walk through the troubles of this and every season.
(There is MUCH More
at the restricted blog). Follow me on Twitter, MeWe, or Parler for easy
access. Blog M T 4 Christ dot org – This
is where the Facebook post ends.)
I meditate everyday now that I have the time. I pray prayers of
thanksgiving and petition the Lord for those in my circle, mentioning specific
needs as they arise. Then I rest and try to listen to hear if the Lord has
anything to say. I also grab a Bible verse from a stack of index cards I have
filled out with scriptures that I have found to be meaningful over the years,
to reflect on and to give the Lord the opportunity to “give me a word for the day”. This “random draw”
can allow for my Sovereign God to communicate in meaningful and sometimes
unexpected ways. Whether or not the
verses are particularly meaningful to my personal situation doesn’t matter, as
reading scripture is always beneficial. And
now that I’m passing it along, it could be meaningful to you. There are no
coincidences with God.
Today’s meditation verse was:
PS 37:30-31 (NLT): The godly
offer good counsel; they teach right from wrong.
They have made God’s law their
own, so they will never slip from His path.
In the original Hebrew, “law” is
rightly understood to be “instruction” or “teaching”. Those of us with problems
with the “law” in the past should not take offense but understand God’s law as
God’s way. The context of this verse bears this out as to follow a certain
“path” is to go a certain “way”.
Endeavor to live your life
according to God’s way because even though it may not be an easy path it is
without a doubt the best path and a path that comes with no regrets.
Today we continue to share from Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope
Again, where I will share where the authors discuss a complete solution for
depression.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to
support his work:
If you have read only this far, you could easily conclude
that depression can be cured simply by taking the right medications. That kind
of thinking would be unfortunate, and very inaccurate. We have helped many
resolve their conflicts and find their freedom in Christ without medication,
but we have seen few if any find total resolution of personal and interpersonal
conflicts by using medications only.
Only truth can set us free. Medications
cannot change your circumstances, or cause you to resolve personal and
spiritual conflicts, but they can fix the computer so the proper program can
run. Similarly, it is hard to pray and read our Bibles when we have the flu.
Dr. David Antonuccio, a psychologist,
and his colleagues at the University of Nevada School of Medicine in Reno found
in their research that “despite the conventional wisdom, the data suggest
that there is no stronger medicine than psychotherapy in the treatment of
depression, even if severe.”
Consumer Reports recently reached
similar conclusions. After 4,000 of its subscribers responded to the
largest-ever survey on the use of therapy and/or drugs to treat depression,
researchers at the Consumers Union determined that “psychotherapy alone
worked as well as psychotherapy combined with medication, like Prozac and
Xanax. Most people who took the drugs did feel they were helpful, but many
reported side effects.”
Of course, conclusions drawn from
surveys filled out by the general population can easily be skewed. Take, for
example, the critical question of causation. Which came first in the
cases reported—external negative circumstances, poor mental evaluation of life,
lack of faith in God or chemical imbalance?
A depressed mood will likely accompany
biochemistry changes in the body, but to say that changed biochemistry caused
depression is as incomplete as saying a dead battery caused the car not to
start. We would have to ask, What caused the battery to fail? Are there other
possible reasons the car wouldn’t start? Was it out of gas? A faulty alternator
or a broken belt? Were the lights left on? Is the battery old and worn out? You
can jump-start the car by using booster cables, which would work if you had
just left the lights on. A good mechanic would consider many possible causes to
ensure that the car would continue to run.
The fact that antidepressant
medications help depressed people feel better is not even arguable. They do. On
the other hand, taking medications every time you have a symptom of depression
is like getting a jump start every time your car won’t start. The car is
designed to function as a whole unit; and so are we. After having been on an
antidepressant medication for almost three weeks, one woman declared, “I
didn’t know the promises in the Bible were true for me until now.” That
is, a proper use of medication enabled her to assume a responsible course of
action. Martin Seligman, a noted researcher on depression, reflected on its
causes:
I
have spent the last twenty years trying to learn what causes depression. Here
is what I think. Bipolar depression (manic-depression) is an illness of the
body, biological in origin and containable by drugs. Some unipolar depressions,
too, are partly biological, particularly the fiercest ones. Some unipolar
depression is inherited. If one of two identical twins is depressed, the other
is somewhat more likely to be depressed than if they’d been fraternal twins.
This kind of unipolar depression can often be contained with drugs, although
not nearly as successfully as bipolar depression can be, and its symptoms can
often be relieved by Electroconvulsive therapy.
But inherited unipolar depressions are in the minority. This
raises the question of where the great number of depressions making up the
epidemic in this country come from. I ask myself if human beings have undergone
physical changes over the century that have made them more vulnerable to
depression. Probably not. It is very doubtful that our brain chemistry or our
genes have changed radically over the last two generations. So a tenfold
increase in depression is not likely to be explained on biological grounds.
I suspect that the epidemic depression so familiar to all of
us is best viewed as psychological. My guess is that most depression starts
with problems in living and with specific ways of thinking about these
problems.
We generally agree with Seligman, but
we disagree that all severe unipolar and bipolar depressions are only illnesses
of the body. It certainly can be the primary problem, and physical and chemical
imbalances should definitely be considered in severe cases. But we have found
that many severe depressions have a definite spiritual component that is
totally overlooked in the secular world, and often in our churches. We will
discuss that possibility in following chapters, but to illustrate this point
listen to the following testimony:
I
am writing in regards to your seminar in Minnesota. The day it was to start, I
was to be admitted to a hospital for the fifth time for manic depression. I
have been dealing with this for almost two years. We had gone to several
doctors and tried about every drug they could think of. I also had shock
treatments. I attempted suicide twice. Unable to work any longer, I spent most
of my days downstairs wishing I were dead or planning my next attempt. Also, it
was a good place to protect myself from people and the world around me. I had a
history of self-abuse. I have spent 30 odd years in jail or prisons. I was a
drug addict and an alcoholic. I have been in drug and alcohol treatment 28
times.
I became a Christian several years ago but always lived a
defeated life. Now I was going back to the hospital to try new medications or
more shock treatments. My wife and friends convinced me your seminar would be
of more value. The hospital was concerned because they believed I needed
medical help. As the four days of the conference progressed my head started to
clear up! The word of God was ministering to me, even though I was confused and
in pain. I told one of your staff that I was in my 11th hour. He set up an
appointment for me.
The session lasted seven hours. They didn’t leave one stone
uncovered. The session was going great until I came to bitterness and
unforgiveness. The three things that motivated my life were low self-esteem,
anger, and bitterness which were the result of being molested by a priest and
suffering from many years of physical and verbal abuse in my childhood. I can
honestly say I forgave them and God moved right in, lifting my depression. My
eyes were now open to God’s truth. I felt lighter than ever before.
I did go to the hospital, but after two days they said I
didn’t need to be there. My doctors said I was a different person. They had
never seen a person change so fast. They said, “Whatever you are doing,
don’t stop.” I have been growing in the Lord daily. There is so much
before Christ and after Christ that I could go on forever.
Secular counselors seldom if ever see
that kind of resolution. Too many people continue in their depression because
professionals they have consulted have considered only one possible cause and
therefore only one possible cure.
Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.
——————————more
on tomorrow————————-
God bless
you all!
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