O Lord, how many are my foes!
Psalm 3:1-8
Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
“There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah
3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
4 I cried aloud to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah
5 I lay down and slept;
I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.
7 Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
8 Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people! Selah
I am not a person who is prone to depression. But, yesterday, the Lord made it clear to me that I have been depressed of late. I was thinking about my behavioral changes and wondering why. My normal discipline of prayer has been interrupted. I found it too easy to escape by taking a nap. Fortunately, I have maintained all of my duties regarding my business and personal obligations to friends and family. As I was pondering these behavioral changes, I asked the Lord, “What is wrong?” He gave me a simple answer. “You are depressed.” Really? I don’t do depression. I don’t get depressed. But as I thought about it, I had to agree. (It’s usually good to agree with the Lord, by the way.)
Identifying the problem is, I believe, the first step to overcoming the problem.
Last evening I met with the Disciple-Making Community (DMC) that I have been a part of for the past three-plus years. Part of our normal routine is to share things we are thankful for and then the things we are struggling with. The point of this is to then pray for one another and be a support to one another.
We also spent some time doing a Discovery Bible Study in Matthew 26:36-46, the passage where Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane before he was betrayed. You will recall that Jesus asked Peter, James, and John, three times to pray with him. They all fell asleep. Jesus’ response was, “And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”1
That passage spoke to me. To watch is to be alert and awake for the purpose of prayer. It takes on the imagery of the watchman on the wall in ancient cities. Jesus is encouraging prayer that is alert to what is going on around us. With the pressure of all that has gone on in the past year, COVID, problems of previously faithful teachers seeming to succumb to world-think in their teaching, and the political environment we have been living in for the past six months or so, I fell into an imbalance between watching and praying. I have been doing too much watching in proportion to my praying, and the pressure of the evil around me caused depression.
It was a matter of hours between the time Jesus told Peter to watch and pray, so he would not enter into temptation and the time he denied Christ three times. Is it possible that had Peter obeyed Jesus and prayed, he would not have given in to the temptation to act in self-preservation instead of loyalty to Jesus? Watching and praying will shield us from the temptation to believe that the problems we see are greater than the God we serve and thus become depressed.
Last evening my DMC team members prayed for me. Part of the Scripture referenced in the prayer was Psalm 3, where God is declared the “lifter of my head.” My confession of my weakness and the prayers of my fellow team members made a huge difference.
Another one of the DMC members spoke up to declare that I am not the only one who has been feeling this depression. Another echoed this. So, I decided that today, I would write about this issue since I realize that many of us have a similar experience. In addition to what I have already shared of my story, let me share some other thoughts that may help others in a similar state.
- Recognize that the issue is depression.
- Recognize that depression is not the natural state of a Jesus-follower.
- Heed Jesus command to Peter, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
- Trust God to do his work and don’t take on yourself those responsibilities that only God can fulfill. Our job is to bring those big problems to God and ask him to deal with them.
- Get good rest and adequate exercise.
- Bask in the fact that Jesus is a shield around you and the lifter of your head.
In Psalm 3, David is being pursued by enemies who would have him dead. He says what his enemies are saying about him (There is no salvation for him in God.”) but then follows up with what he knows of God, “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” He cried out to God and laid down and slept because the Lord sustained him. Isn’t that our state? We, too, can and should cry out to the Lord and then lie down and sleep because the Lord will sustain us.
Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people!
We may well be in a new phase in America, one which I couldn’t fathom as a young person. We may be in the decline of America due to America turning against God in such a dramatic way. It is painful to contemplate the possibility, but it would be appropriate since our blessing as a nation has come from God, and we have decided that we don’t need him anymore. Why would he maintain our blessing and prosperity when we give him the stiff-arm? A loss of blessing may be the best thing that can happen. I pray that temporal loss will result in hearts seeking a more permanent answer to life and that we may find it in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For we who are believers and followers of Jesus, now is the time to rise to the challenge and become serious disciple-makers. There are thousands of people around us whom God has been preparing to receive the good news. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will send laborers. And you are a laborer.
Let us rise from the ashes of our depression and march in the Army of God that fights with spiritual weaponry. The war has already been won. We are in on the mop us operations of gathering the elect into the kingdom of our Great King.
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