A Psalm For the Depressed

As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God? ” I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts. Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God. I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me. The Lord will send His faithful love by day; 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 must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression? ” My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, “Where is your God? ” Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.
Psalms 42:1‭-‬11 HCSB

Why do we become depressed, dark, cloudy, melancholic? It is usually in response to something we miss, a crushing experience we constantly struggle with and there is no end in sight but sometimes we are caught and deluded into believing a lie about ourselves and or others.

Being alone again after having mum stay for 6 weeks is depressing. I prefer to have company. However, I can see what is happening and refuse it's tentacles and seek out company. I am also faced with working alone at home. With correct thinking this can be enjoyable. Therefore I must monitor my thinking and manage my time, making sure I interact with people.

I have a friend who says he is chronically depressed and is on medication for it. As I have gotten to know him I know he believes he is caught in a place that is a lie. He believes God has failed him and so he purposefully lives in that place and feeds the shackles upon Him. Of late he is having more and more time off work. I know that as he courts his problem he is getting sucked dry. The enemy of his soul is sucking the life out of him. Talking to him bring no result. He needs a power encounter with God.

A girl who worked for me left because she was depressed and unable to cope. She is medicated amd caught in a place that requires her to live out a pattern of thinking. It is sucking the life out of her.

Both of these represent a vast number of Christians who are caught in wrong thinking and need medication to cope. Wouldn't a renewed mind be better?

Myself I must fight the darkness and stand for life. I must willingly seek new thinking, God's thinking and be transformed. I have been alone for 14 years now and still prefer company but look for the good. What had God got for me in this place? Sitting down in the blackness is not an option. If I allowed myself to be depressed I could join the crowd but I must fight it and find gold in this place of aloneness. God has a plan. He knows the future. I must trust Him for it. Amen!