daily java

Daily Java:

They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. (2 Peter 3:5)

I believe that people who deny the existence of God decide to do so. I do not understand why, but it is a conscious decision made on some level. It may even be one that they may not be aware of, but there is some perceived need in that person to not believe in God.

People are hard-wired to believe in God. As beings made in his image, it is the most natural thing to do. And people almost always turn to God in times of difficulties. As someone once said, there are no atheists in foxholes. When people get in trouble, it is natural to call on One higher than they.

But why would they choose to deny God? Why would they go completely against their inborn nature and just decide to deny the most basic thing in life?

It may be the desire to go it alone, to do what they want with no punishment or feelings of guilt. It would be like the man who decides he will not love his wife or his children or his parents. He wants to be by himself and keep all he has for himself and the only way to do that is to get rid of people around him, and to get rid of any entanglements caused by love. He just gets rid of what he considers “impediments” to his happiness.

It may be the decision that they know better and feel the belief in a divine being is beneath their intellectual station. Their mind has become their god and they begin to worship themselves. That is secular humanism and is infecting our culture.

It also may be that they want to do something that they know to be wrong and feel guilty. So they try to get rid of the Source of the guilt, God. If they can detach their moral compass, they can set themselves free (or at least think so). Hollywood does this. The immoral lifestyle Hollywood lives is incompatible with the Christian lifestyle so they jettison belief in God.

Or if they keep that belief in a god, the god they believe in has morphed into something totally unlike the God of the Universe. He becomes a rubber stamp for what they want to do and helps them justify what they do. That is the homosexual god, one who wants them to do whatever they want to be “happy”. If being happy means perverting nature and doing things that are abnormal, then this god changes into one who empowers them.

But it is always made as a personal decision. It is a sad decision, one that is kind of pathetic in that it makes a person totally alone and without the grounding that man was made to have.

And ultimately they will be by themselves. Having denied God, they have made themselves alone. The only company they will have in the end will be that of another who made himself alone by defying God: satan. What a sad ending.

Daily Java:

Drink water from your own well— share your love only with your wife. (Proverbs 5:15)

1969. Ella and I were talking about it tonight. We went on a date on Tuesday night, astonishing all of her friends. After all, it was a school night and she was in 12th grade.

We went to Piccadilly Cafeteria in Houston at the Almeda Mall. I had a variation of the same thing I have everywhere, a veal cutlet or chicken fried steak. I am so predictable.

I have no idea what she had. But she did have my heart.

That night, we kissed for the first time. And I loved her. More than I should, probably. But I did.

She had my heart. It took a while before she had mine. But I waited.

And here we are almost 2 years later, still in love. I love her even now.

Our life has not always been an easy one. but she has stuck with me through all the problems. We had, after all, an understanding. We loved each other and would stick with each other through all the problems and difficulties no matter what.

And we did. So here we are, almost 42 years later, still loving each other. It amazed the guys in the jail that we could be together so long. They came from broken homes and damaged situations and couldn’t imagine loving someone for so long.

Someone at church the other day mentioned that they had not had someone with such a story of loving someone for so long before. And we had. And we do. And we will until we die.

I like having someone that I have loved for so long in my life. It gives continuity and purpose to my life. How, after so long, could I turn from her.

Yes, there are temptations. Yes, there are opportunities. Of course, they grow less and less the older I get. But no, I will not give in to them. because, after all, I love her.

The number of times we have made love is legion. And I cannot imagine being with anyone else. Yes, on the one hand, I can. But, on the other hand, I cannot. Because it would ruin something so good, so positive, so powerful.

I share my love with her. no one else. Just her.

And I love her. what else is there to say?

daily java

Daily Java:

So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:8)

The scripture may be a bit out of context, but I like it. The point is that we are at that strange place that is no longer Thanksgiving and not yet Christmas. Advent doesn’t start until next week so today is kind of a free weekend.

I just read an article about how people are beginning to hate Christmas and some want to ban gifts. And there are those who hate Thanksgiving, too. They are not all that keen on being dependent and thanking someone so if they just ignore the whole thing, they will be fine.

Thanksgiving and Christmas have both turned into something weird in our modern world. Thanksgiving is nothing but gluttony and Christmas is a retail fest. Someone wrote not long ago that retailers have ruined all of the holidays and I believe it. They go from Valentine’s Day the day after Christmas, then Easter and Mother’s Day, then July fourth. There is a lull until Halloween comes (the second biggest grossing retail holiday of the year), a brief stop at Thanksgiving and then Christmas (which starts the day after Halloween).

It can make a person jaundiced and somewhat depressed. But what you have to do is look past the retail stuff and see the real thing.

I will admit that Christmas music at the first of November really irritates me. Especially when places like the grocery store (which I do not think of when I think of Christmas) starts playing it on November 1. Christmas decorations at the mall on the first of November rankle me too.

But on the other hand, what can I do about it? Nothing. I can rage against the night, or I can just decide to celebrate Christmas my way. I choose to do it the right way.

Christmas music in WalMart on the first of November has a desperate ring to it. There is no joy, no peace, no celebration. There is only the fervent desire to get me to buy something and the Christmas music is nothing but a means to an end.

But at the same time, I love Christmas. Last Friday, we got out the boxes of Christmas stuff and we are looking at them deciding where to put what in our new house here in Longton, Kansas.

Yes, there is Christmas in Kansas. And we will celebrate it both in our home and in church.

Whatever you want or whatever you think, Christmas is coming and you can do nothing about it. So you might as well celebrate the coming of the Lord as a little baby in a manger almost 2000 years ago. God loved us enough to send his only born Son. Love him enough to acknowledge it.

daily java

Daily Java:

Open for me the gates where the righteous enter, and I will go in and thank the Lord.
These gates lead to the presence of the Lord, and the godly enter there.
I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory!
The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wonderful to see.
This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Please, Lord, please save us. Please, Lord, please give us success.
Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God, shining upon us. Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise you! You are my God, and I will exalt you!
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever. (Psalm 118:19-29)

I want to go meet God, but not just going in. I want to go with the other righteous. I want a crowd with me when I enter praising. I want a band with dancing and singing and jumping. I want holy noise.

We thank God for all he has done, event he things which surprise us. He gave us victory in the midst of defeat. He gives us usefulness when no one else thinks we are any good anymore. he makes the day and brings the light when all around us seems to be night and darkness.

His grace and his face shine on us and he is able to use what we bring, even though in the eyes of the world it is small and useless.

He is my God and I will ever praise him.

Thanks be to the Lord all year, but especially in this season. Thank you, Lord!

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Daily Java:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. (Psalm 100:4)

It is Thanksgiving week. Thanksgiving kind of snuck up on me this year. It is next Thursday and I had forgotten until someone reminded me last Thursday.

Christmas is next, of course. I will probably remember it. I don’t think I am that far gone.

But Thanksgiving is an odd day to the world. More and more I hear it called Turkey Day, a day in which for some arcane reason we eat turkey. No one knows why, goes back to the Pilgrims, a bunch of guys with buckles on their hats. They were weird anyway. Indians came for some reason to dinner.

Or at least you would think that listening to the media people. They really have no concept of what the real reason is for Thanksgiving.

I remember reading of some guy that was an unbeliever who was saying that we stop for a moment and think about all the good stuff we have to be thankful for. I guess he would thank the universe (the default god of the world) for giving him a turkey and stuff for dinner. Then he would glut himself and then watch football or something, with no other thought for the day or any more goofiness like giving thanks for stuff he bought himself.

The world just cannot figure out Thanksgiving in general. It is so easy to feel entitled, like someone owes us something. We do not feel the need to thank people for stuff. After all, we probably deserve it or something. We bought it with our own money.

But we don’t deserve it. God gave us those things and the money to buy them with and even the jobs we work. And we need to remember to be thankful for all we have, even when things do not go our way. And they don’t a lot of the time.

Remember that next Thursday when you stagger from the table to a comfortable chair, overloaded with pie and all. Be thankful to your God for more than a multitude of food. Be thankful for all we have as Americans, for all we have as Children of God, for all we have just in general.

Praise be to the One who gave it all to us. May he give us even more.

And he will when we are thankful. After all, who wants to give anything to a bunch of whiny ingrates that clamor for more? I barely want to talk to those kind of people much less give them good things. It would seem to me to be a waste. But of course, he loves us. And we praise him.

Happy Thanksgiving from Sister Ella and me here in Longton, Kansas. May your hearts be full of his grace and his love in all you do, and may the upcoming Christmas season be a good one for you and your family.

daily java

Daily Java:

Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me. If I announce that some wicked people are sure to die and you fail to tell them to change their ways, then they will die in their sins, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths. But if you warn them to repent and they don’t repent, they will die in their sins, but you will have saved yourself. (Ezekiel 33:7-9)

Son of man, your people talk about you in their houses and whisper about you at the doors. They say to each other, "Come on, let’s go hear the prophet tell us what the Lord is saying!" So my people come pretending to be sincere and sit before you. They listen to your words, but they have no intention of doing what you say. Their mouths are full of lustful words, and their hearts seek only after money. You are very entertaining to them, like someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice or plays fine music on an instrument. They hear what you say, but they don’t act on it! But when all these terrible things happen to them—as they certainly will—then they will know a prophet has been among them.” (Ezekiel 33:30-33)

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me.” And he said, “Yes, go, and say to this people,
‘Listen carefully, but do not understand.
    Watch closely, but learn nothing.’
Harden the hearts of these people.
    Plug their ears and shut their eyes.
That way, they will not see with their eyes,
    nor hear with their ears,
nor understand with their hearts
    and turn to me for healing.” (Isaiah 6:8-10)

I like being a preacher. I have been in the ministry for almost forty years and I choose to remain in it.

But there are downsides.

First is that God holds me more accountable than my church for what I teach them. He said I am a watchman. He was speaking to Ezekiel, but his message goes for all prophets, all “forth-tellers” of truth. We have a great obligation to get it right.

Second is that people, when they listen, do so insincerely entirely too much of the time. Someone once said that preaching is telling people things that they do not believe but want to pretend they do. And in some churches that is the case. They come, listen to the preacher, sing along with the band, throw a little money in the plate, maybe take a little communion and then go home thinking they have fulfilled their duties to God.

In this one, you are nothing more than a stop in the line of entertainment. And that is depressing to one who really cares.

Third is that they will not listen to you. I suppose this and number two kind of tie for worst. It is hard to choose between the worst: either you as entertainment or you as background noise. But God told Isaiah that they were not going to listen when he spoke. They would pretend to and even compliment his sermon, but they really were not listening. But he was to speak anyway.

It is a hard  job being a preacher. It has its rewards, but it also has its drawbacks. And it is true that unless God calls you into it, you are not going to stay. It is too heartbreaking at times for the man who is not committed or called.

And it is a fact that the call of God is not always a happy thing. Look at Hebrews 11 to see that. John the Baptizer, who spend all of six months in his profession before being beheaded. Jesus for that matter who spent only three years before being brutally killed.

But at the same time, thanks be to God. As 2 Timothy 1:11 said: And God chose me to be a preacher and preacher I will remain.

I was always big

The bed you have made is too short to lie on.
    The blankets are too narrow to cover you. (Isaiah 28:20)

I was always big. And the funny thing is that I did not realize it until I was older. I realize now that people were always leery of me, and some were afraid of me, but I don’t think I knew why.

I have always had an inferiority complex. I have never felt like I was worth much. And I always felt inferior to most people. That kind of translated to shorter, I guess. I never felt all that powerful or that strong, even though I was.

Looking back, I knew that beds were too little, that I had trouble finding shirts long enough, all that. But I just never put it into my knowledge that I was so much larger than everyone else.

I also knew that little guys hated me. I just never realized why.

I suppose that is a good thing. I may have turned into a bully or one who used his size to a bad advantage.

As I get older I realize how much larger I am than others. And it really all came to my mind one day in 1993 when I was taking a friend somewhere in my car. I had a 1986 Chevette, a pretty small car. My friend was about an inch or two taller than I was. I commented that he looked stupid in my car. He responded, how do you think you look?

I had never considered it. Ever. It had just never dawned on me that I was always the tallest, the biggest, the strongest – all that. Maybe once or twice in my whole life.

But when I stand next to guys my size in WalMart or somewhere else, it reminds me that I am a significant sized guy.

Not that I am going to do anything about it at this late date. But I have to admit, if I had such a tough time with an inferiority complex at 6’3” and 250 pounds, what would I have been like at smaller?

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Daily Java:

He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. (Psalm 23:3)

I just read this article about obstacle courses as fun, it was somewhere in Pennsylvania but I have this feeling it is more places than that. Goofiness is universal.

I remember in basic training in the army when they made us go through obstacle courses. I hated it. It was not fun. We had a guy whose sole job was to holler at us and humiliate us who followed us all the way through the obstacle courses.

I did not have a good time.

I really do not know how people can have a good time doing this, much less pay good money to do this.

But then again, a lot of people have a lot of good money that they cannot seem to get rid of fast enough. I could never understand that either, not having any real surplus of money myself.

But the idea of doing something that I had to do by act of Congress and then paying for it is just a lot for me to consider. After all, I would never have voluntarily gone through basic  training in the first place, much less an obstacle course.

Running while someone shot at you, climbing tall things, hanging from your fingertips over a ravine with spikes at the bottom, low crawling under barbed wire. These were not fun things.

Yes there were upsides to basic training. I was fit. I could do 100 pushups and no telling how many sit-ups. I was in great shape and I liked that. On our honeymoon, I looked like a god.

Maybe not that great, but I sure looked good. 6’3”, 190 pounds, good shoulders, a six pack of abs. It was fun.

On the other hand, I was only in great shape because if I had not been, I would have gone to jail as a draft resister. So there was no contest. I did it and I shut up.

But to pay to do it. That is what boggles my mind.

I guess there comes a  point when you have to come to grips with the fact that you have missed out on something. And I guess these guys feel they have missed out on the army experience and want to do those things they missed out on.

Which is okay, I guess. It is just weird that they would pay good money to do what I had to do as a soldier.

Of course, lots of things amaze me so I guess this is not any different.

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Daily Java:

Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. (Hebrews 12:15)

There is no death worse than that of cancer. It just eats at you until you are gone. Sometimes you are able to stop it, or slow it. But sometimes you are also able to cut it out. When you cut it out, you don’t have it anymore. Now you might have the propensity towards having cancer, but that particular cancer is gone and will not bother you anymore.

Of course, the problem is, now that you have gotten the cancer, you tend to get it again. Your body has whatever it is that manufactures the cancer still in its bloodstream and you have to be vigilant, checking frequently to make sure it doesn’t come back.

It is the same with bitterness in your heart. That is what the writer of Hebrews calls a poisonous root of bitterness. That root of bitterness gets into your heart and begins to eat away at you. Everything you do, everything you think is consumed with whatever caused that root of bitterness.

Maybe you got angry at someone and it never got resolved. You have to see them everyday, but you are still angry. Maybe someone did something bad to you and doesn’t seem to care that it hurt you and your family. It doesn’t bother them, but it surely bothers you. And it eats at you.

Maybe it was something beyond your control. This past election has been a major disappointment to many who felt their side to be the right one. it has brought a sense of sadness and despair that keeps on growing. And the problem is, if you feel that way, and you watch the news, the winner of the election is on every newscast. And he even gloats over his victory.

If you think about it enough, that root of bitterness comes into your heart. And one thing that root will not do is let you live happily. It gives you sadness, despair, all the things that you do not want to live with. And it seems that it will never go away, especially since it will be four years until the next election.

And that is if it changes then.

So what do you do? Jesus said in Matthew 5:29-30: So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. It is better to live without what you have that is bad than it is to be destroyed by it. And sometimes that requires major surgery on your life, getting rid of things that hurt you.

Sometimes you have to let things go. There is nothing you can do about the election. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about what someone has done to you, or how they treated you. You have to let it go.

If you don’t, it will eat you up like a cancer and you will die a bitter person. And that is tragic.

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Daily Java:

For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. (Hebrews 12:10-11)

I really am not sure how discipline from God works. I have read and heard a thousand discussions and sermons and pontifications on it, but I am still not sure.

On the one hand, nothing bad ever comes from God. The Bible plainly says that God does not send bad things to us. All bad comes from the devil. God does not tempt us nor does he hurt us. In the book of Job, that is shown rather plainly.

But what he does do is let the bad happen. He doesn’t always stop it. There were times when God stopped bad things from happening and kept the person from harm. Then there were times when he stood by and let them happen.

For instance, in Acts 12, the apostle James is killed by the ruling authorities. They got away with it so they decided they would arrest the leader, Peter. However, God led Peter out of prison and saved his life. Peter left and lived. Why he chose Peter over James I do not know and neither does anyone else.

Sometimes the discipline that he allows to happen seems for nothing. Job never knew why he was hurt so badly. It was just a bet between God and the devil. God won, Job didn’t deny him like the devil said he would, but Job and his helpless wife were damaged beyond repair. He got everything back along with new children, but his life had been shattered. And God stood around and let it be.

So what happens when God disciplines us? I believe that it is the living through the pain that makes it discipline. Bad things happen to everybody no matter how well blessed they may be. But there is a differences between those who accept the pain as discipline and those who do not.

Those who do not accept it as discipline rage against the night, they rage against God, against others, against life in general. They become bitter and angry. They wear their anger like a suit of clothing and everybody can see it. It eats them up.

Those who do accept it as discipline become stronger. They are like the trees that stand before storms. They just become stronger. Their endurance is strong, their patience is strong, their strength multiplies. They accept the fact that things happen, and that some of them are bad things, and they allow God to remain in their lives. You can see the strength and the endurance.

There is a scene from a movie about the older Robin Hood and Marian in which the older Robin is telling the older Marian about all the things that had happened since they saw each other last, which had been several years. He talked about the atrocities of war that he performed under the leadership of King Richard and how it made him feel. She asked him if it was so terrible, why did you stay with King Richard? Robin answered in a bit of astonishment at the question, he is my King. Where else would I go?

We have had a lot of bad things happen to us in the past few years. One day my daughter asked me why we kept on going to church. It seemed to her that God had turned from us. My answer: he is my God and I will ever serve him. After all, life for many of his people in the Bible was not particularly good. So why should I expect different. I remain faithful even though bad things happen to me.

In John 6, the apostles were embarrassed at some of the graphic language Jesus used in describing our relationship to him. Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Many turned from him. Jesus turned to the apostles and said, are you going to leave too? Their answer, “Lord, to whom would we go. You have the answer to eternal life.”

We accept what happens to us because we love God. And we let it make us stronger. And we become like the tree that stands before storm after storm: strong and straight.

We stand as citizens of a better country and disciples of Christ.

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Daily Java:

So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. (2 Corinthians 4:12-14)

I am at the end of my first Sunday as a pastor again. It was a good day, although it was kind of a short experience. Bible Class began at 9:00 and church at 10:00. I led praise and worship and gave the communion devotional, in addition to the sermon. I spoke on “I Believe in the Church.” I didn’t get finished so I will continue next week. There was a potluck afterwards with more food than you could imagine.

It was a good experience. And it was one I thought I would never have again. I figured that I would become an interim pastor maybe for dying churches. But I really didn’t think God would find a place to use me again as a pastor.

The people in Longton are excited to have me. they seem so pleased that I have agreed to come here. I think they have despaired of finding someone that went with their mindset. They are a blend of Christian Church and Assembly of God, so they are a bit different. As am I.

This is not the place I ever dreamed of being, a town of 350. But two things led me here as confirmations. One was the fact that I had to get new tires and the odd size my van takes was available for what I could spend. The other is that the church, for the first time in its history, voted unanimously for me to come.

With those two things I knew God wanted me here. And I feel called here. I am not sure Ella does yet, but she is called to be with me, so she goes with me wherever I go. So she is here too.

I do not have the slightest idea what I will do, but for the present I am listening. I listen to people and hear what they think, what they want.

It does seem that I will become the town pastor. The Methodists do not have enough to have a full time pastor and no one seems to know the Baptist pastor. His church is also tiny. There is also a small group of Christadelphians here, a group about which I know little. That pretty much leaves me.

There is no outreach to the teens. Any outreach in the past was made by this church, so it will up to me to engineer one.

I look forward to what the Lord has in mind for me here. I will do whatever is needed to fulfill my ministry. I want to stay here the rest of my life. I want to know these people and love them. I want them to love me. I want to show them the grace of God that is in my life. I want to glorify God in my life to them.

May the Lord bless my ministry and keep us safe.

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Daily Java:

Written on our last Sunday with Firm Foundation Church in Boonville, MO.

Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other with Christian love. (2 Corinthians 13:11-13)

Today is my last Sunday with you.  We are moving to Longton, Kansas, tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise. I have taken a church there that is part of the denomination I used to be in. It is an interesting church, with an interesting blend of members. It fits my talents and gifts and who I am almost perfectly. It is a work that I will be able to stay in until I die.

It is also different for us in that it is a tiny little town, 350 people in all. 1.1 square miles total town footage. They are thinking of carpeting it next year.

We have rarely lived in little towns, usually in suburbs or in cities. It is a pleasant town with a grocery store, a café, a bar that serves food, a pizza place, a drive-in that sells hamburgers and such and a mini-mart that sells gas. It also has a little library. A wood-working shop rounds out the businesses, with a few mechanics and such. It also has its own school district of about 160 kids.

It is a church of about 50 and seems to be a well-balanced church, with all ages. I look forward to it. Their parsonage is an old farm house on five acres outside of town. Of course, in a town of 350 that means it is only five or six blocks from downtown. Two horses live over the fence in the front yard.

We will be moving tomorrow morning, so if you can come help, do so. If nothing else, you can stand around and point. That’s what Ella does nowadays.

I have enjoyed being with you here at Firm Foundation. Pastor Mel and I respect each other and he found a place for me to minister here. I have been involved in the jail chaplaincy program and have written almost 400,000 words in bulletins, articles, jail circulars and in my blog mentioned above. I have been church editor, taught Sunday night, played in the praise band, sang occasional specials, videoed the services and special events and had many of the church over for supper at one time or another. I have even managed to be friends with Tom Pulliam, no mean feat in itself.

I am a different guy. Pastor Mel and I have strong disagreements on a lot of things yet we maintain Christian fellowship. I have tried to teach my class on Sunday nights that it is okay to question and to look outside the traditional window.

I love you and always will. I will continue to contribute articles to the bulletin. But they will come from 300 miles away in southeastern Kansas. Looking at a map, it is 30 miles west of Independence, Kansas. A tiny little town with a great big, oversized preacher playing a 12 string guitar and worshiping God and preaching freedom.

I surely look forward to it. But I will also surely miss you. God bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

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Daily Java:

The first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me. May it not be counted against them. (2 Timothy 4:16)

Depression is a real thing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Paul felt it keenly in this passage and felt that everybody had deserted him. I kind of doubt everybody did, but it certainly is the way Paul felt.

Several people in the Bible suffered from bouts of depression. Paul was one. He spent an awful lot of time either recuperating from being beaten or sitting in jail. He just got tired of it.

Elijah also suffered from depression in a big way. At one point, he even felt that he was the only one left to serve God, that the entire nation was gone.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:4; God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Those who realize the fact that people do not do what God wants and mourn over it are blessed.

In other words, Jesus said that those who were depressed over the fact that things were not as they should be were blessed.

Anybody that say that depression is not of God is full of beans.

Elijah was one who was depressed. He recognized that what was real and happening was not what God wanted. He even went so far as to say that he alone was left, the only person in the world that was still righteous. It wasn’t true, of course, but it was what he  thought.

God said, nonsense. He said: Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him! (1 Kings 19:18). Elijah, you are not alone.

God said your depression is for nothing, yet he did not condemn him for it. He recognized that everybody has low times.

There are times when you feel low. God does not expect you to stand around and shout glad tidings at all times. He knows that there are times that you mourn.

You know that things are not like you want them to be. Nor are they like God wants them to be. He knows that.

And he never condemned you for thinking otherwise. You are after all human. And you feel down at times. Rare is the person who doesn’t.

Anybody who tells you otherwise is not speaking from God. They are trying their best to tear you down and make you feel worse. And when you feel worse, you do not feel godly.

God knows you have problems and he accepts you anyway. Because after all he loves you.