"Arise and eat." 1 Kings 19:5.
The angel in the passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simpy told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive--only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God's creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things--things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way, is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
Satan would jump in here and stake a claim that God can do much, He can even do most things, but not all things in the area of depression...Some must have medication and psychological care. But I venture to say Scripture asks us to have faith in all things, and altho many would say His answer is medicine, I contend that the supernatural nature of God is called upon when we but ask in His name. We are asked to take initiative: Spiritual initiative, initiative over depression, initiative over despair, initiative over drudgery, even daydreaming.
If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love.If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. Granted this may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God, not driven by duty or self-incline, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are we just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things we could be doing for Him? And, I am not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things--things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. What does this have to do with depression? It is in the foundation of things that comes the cure. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look etc etc...out of fear of offending God "....but perfect love casts out fear..."once we are surrendered to God. [1 John 4:18]. Depression has us asking ourselves, "Am I of any use?" But freedom from depression is not pumping ourselves full of drugs demanding to think highly of us, it is in the spiritual reality of accepting the truth that we are not much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work thru us all the time, and our assigned purpose and value will have depression be put in it's place.
