set me free from my prison so i may praise your name

Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me. (Psalm 142:7)

I just woke up from some unpleasant dreams. They were not necessarily bad, just no much fun.

In one – which I suppose was more goofy than anything else – I test drove the new Volkswagen beetle coupe. It was a two seater. It had a tiny VW body on the front with two small seats behind it. The driver and passenger sat out in the open so that they were exposed to the weather. For some reason, the fact that they were exposed to sleet (in the dream)  bothered me a lot. It was also so small I felt stupid driving it and people laughed.

In the second, I was at a gathering of some kind. Lots of things were going on, but I lay in my bed, which for some inexplicable reason was outside kind of in the middle of stuff. At one point I got up to do something and had no clothes. All of my clothes and everything else had been moved to another location that I didn’t know. I ran naked to an office to get some clothes. I found pants that had been cut off at the bottoms as they were a little too long, and a shirt.

For some reason, I was treated by a general contempt by many present.

In the course of all this, I met Tom Hanks and found out he was only 5’6”. He felt bad for that and I tried to comfort him by telling him he looked a lot bigger on screen.

When I woke, my hands hurt from being asleep and my sleep mask kind of hurt.

In general, a lousy way to wake up.

Last night, we watched Sixth Sense, a movie about a psychologist trapped here after having died. His main problem was that he himself was dead and didn’t know it. It was a very good movie and you never found out about the man until the very end. Quite a surprise ending.

But also quite a depressing movie. Maybe that infected me.

Whatever did, I awoke in a miasma of depression that is strong. And, at 7:15, it still has not lightened up outside in any appreciable way. It still looks like night. A passing thought was that I had died and it would be perpetual night. But that was fleeting. I seem to be given to weird stuff like that sometimes.

That depression has always seemed like a prison. For a couple of years after my baptism in the Spirit, the depression was gone. In its place was almost a smirky happiness. Then little by little it came back. Not sure why. I liked it when it was gone.

Elijah the prophet suffered from the same problem in 1 and 2 Kings. At one point he was almost immobilized by it and wished to die. The funny thing was that God had just accomplished an amazing miracle through him: the fire from heaven consuming his sacrifice in front of the nation of Israel. He had no reason to be depressed.

I suppose I do. but I hate it and wish it was gone. There are times when I eagerly await death so that I can be freed from this thorn in the flesh.

Set me free, O Lord. Please.