Thursday 28 April 2011

Winnning over Depression Part 5. Feelings or Truth

Note the present imperfect tense of the title, winn-"ing" over depression. It's an ongoing thing, a day by day thing. Some days are better than others but we just have to get it in perspective that we will be up and fighting again. We might lose a round in the boxing match, but we are going to win the fight.

In this blog, I would like to talk about depending on God's favour over us regardless of how we feel.

In some ways we need to "ignore" our feelings - as a depressive our feelings are often negative and unreliable. The trouble is that for so long our feelings have felt so real that we have believed that they are reality. We have to reprogramme our thinking to be in line with a higher truth than our feelings. The only place I know, to find a higher truth than my feelings is the Bible. So I have to go to the Bible with the question, "What does the Bible have to say about me as a believer in Jesus?" It says things about me like, "I am the righteousness of God", "I am more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus who loved me", "I am loved by God", "He will never leave me or forsake me", "He is for me",  etc. etc. These things stand true even when I feel like they are not true. They are truer than my feelings.
We empower whatever or whoever we come into agreement with. We are saying, "Yes, that's right. That does describe me." We get to choose whether we are going to agree with our own damaged thinking, or with what God says about us in the Bible. This sounds easier than it is in reality. It is sooo hard to ignore feelings that are screaming at you that you are a failure and that surely God cannot bless you; and instead walk confidently in the truth that God is for you.
It means behaving like the latter is true. Often when I am on my way to preach, I have thoughts and feelings that God will not bless what I am about to do. I have to focus my thinking on what is true - that God is for me, that His intention is for me to be fruitful, to multiply believers, to fill the earth with Christians and to subdue evil spirits and exercise spiritual dominion wherever I am.

In my next blog I would like to write about the process of changing our thinking. Psychologists call this cognitive behavioural therapy. The Bible calls it being transformed by the renewing of your mind.

1 comment:

  1. Maybe, just maybe, something somewhere deep inside is asking you to question all that you believe and think is true.

    Maybe it's not depression but your highest knowing, softly calling you to notice that nothing is evil; nothing is a threat to the simple perfection of this moment - whether it's christian or not.

    How about trusting your deepest knowing and considering that those thoughts you're fighting might in fact be trying to tell you something.

    That's what I got from reading this.

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