Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up

It doesn’t take very much reading of the Bible to see that there are a lot of uses of the terms shepherd and sheep. For believers, we understand this because Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, and we believers, of course, are the sheep, which makes so much sense. When you really look at it, we have a lot in common with sheep, like being quick to follow each other no matter the situation, and, like sheep, if we get knocked down, we may never recover without help. For sheep, when they get knocked over or down, they become helpless, and that is called being cast; for humans, we have something similar but we call it depression. 

See, when a sheep is cast, they are unable to get back on their feet, and this causes all kinds of internal issues that can cause death within just a few hours. For humans, when we get really depressed and we don’t know how to deal with it, we too can be in a position where it feels like everything is building up, and we have no hope. Now, I know that depression is something that we don’t ever like to talk about because for so many Christians, it’s kind of the thing that just doesn’t happen. The problem with that kind of thinking is that the Bible is full of great heroes who were really depressed, like Elijah or Jeremiah, or even just looking at the book of Ecclesiastes. What I would like to do is look at Psalm 42 and see how this psalmist dealt with this very thing and see how it can help us. 

In Psalm 42:8-11 we see this: The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. - NASB 1995

 

Now, if you have ever really been depressed, then you know all too well what the psalmist is describing here. He is not only feeling the physical pain that can come with depression, but he is also starting to wonder if God has forgotten him or even cares what he’s going through on top of people mocking him. Then he does what all of us who are really struggling do: he begins to talk to himself, trying to figure out what is going on and almost trying to rationalize the situation to make it make sense. This is what depression does to all of us, and in these moments, it’s so easy to feel alone and lost as the psalmist here does, but how do we deal with it? Is there a way that we can make everything better and be okay and not feel this heaviness and this pressure?

Well, the answer to that question is no; there is no a way for us to guarantee that we will never know pain, hurt, conflict, or most of all depression. I know that it might seem like the absence of despair is peace, but the truth is that peace is only peace because we know what it’s like to feel despair and pain. What the psalmist does is the one thing that you and I can do that will allow us to really have lasting peace: he is hoping in God and he is choosing to praise God in the MIDST of the pain. He knew that hope is not some passive emotion but an expectation that God will come through because of who God is and what God has said He will do. We need to remember that Jesus knows our pain and while He may not remove it, He will, as the Good Shepherd, walk with you through whatever comes and give you the grace to endure. 

Jesus says in Matthew Chapter 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

If you are here today and you don’t know Jesus, I want you to know that He will not make your life easy or take away your pain. What Jesus will do is give you the forgiveness that you need for the sins that you have and give you eternal life. Life is hard, and none of us have it easy, but this was never meant to be our home, and all of us will stand before a Holy God one day. Jesus died and took our punishment of Gods wrath so that when you  do stand before God, you can be clean because of His shed blood. Repent and turn to Jesus today.