[picapp align=”left” wrap=”true” link=”term=wrapped&iid=7310676″ src=”0/3/f/d/Ancient_Egyptian_mummy_ff41.jpg?adImageId=9643399&imageId=7310676″ width=”234″ height=”355″ /]What are you wrapped up in? A television show, a sports season, a job, a relationship, a house, a hobby? What empowers you to face the difficulty of the day and to look forward to the promise of tomorrow? When life’s accomplishments lay in ruin around your feet or when the bent of your mind is descending ever lower, what is your remedy?
Ever try the “snuggie” of praise?
I have long struggled with what the medical profession refers to as “depression.” My particular condition is a mixture of personality predisposition and chemical imbalances in my blood (and probably brain). I range from feeling “blue” to dealing with irrational and unwanted thoughts/plans of suicide. I am fortunate in that I have yet to need medication to survive.
It is my deep belief that the remedy taught to me in song by my mother decades ago is crucial to overcoming days when I just want to crawl in a hole and stay there. It has been my experience that when those days come when I cannot face what it means to be alive, my willful response to vocally honor God for who he is, what he is doing, and for his grace to me, throws off the “spirit of faintness.” The fulfillment of this promise exceeds beating the press of the day. The donning of the “garment of praise” guarantees the wearer oak-like strength to the glory of the God who plants such trees.
…To grant those who mourn in Zion–to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes…the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. (Isaiah 61.3, ESV)Try it, this wrap up will be far more satisfying than any you have tried before. This praise dynamic is time-tested and proved to work across ages and cultures.
TheNarrowRoadPursued 
Robert, did you write this? This just doesn’t sound like the Robert I’ve come to know.
I’ve been participating in a Beth Moore Bible study – Breaking Free/updated. We’ve been talking about the 5 benefits of God.
1)To know and believe God
2)To glorify God
3)To find satisfaction in God
4)To experience God’s peace
5)To enjoy God’s presence.
Studying these 5 benefits is helping me.
I did write this…it took me forever as well
Your top 5 are classic. They were first shared with the church long before Beth Moore was even throught of. They are just as true today. Thanks for sharing them!
I hear you son…and rejoice that you depend on ‘the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.’ I was commenting to Dad the other day that it is so easy to look at our family and see how the one who deserves no attention has found the particular area of each of our lives and has attacked viciously with precision. Reading your blog makes me rejoice in two things right off…first, that you are one of the least selfish people I know–hence suicide will not ever, by God’s grace, be something you would indulge in. Secondly, you are doing the very thing you need to do to overcome the recurrent depression (which is familial as well as chemical by the way and if you ever want some tips let me know). You are being vulnerable. I find the synopsis of the “benefits of God” (from the Word via the Westminister Confession?) in the previous comment a bit offfensive in the context of your blog, and out of order of importance and dictate. People don’t ever really ‘know’ one another unless it is ‘through’ the conduit of the Spirit of God. And, just for the record..it is not incumbent on any of us to attempt to keep hidden those things that reveal our deep need for God. Faith has feet always, and the feet of faith always carry us toward a deeper relationship with God. They never carry us to criticism and/or condemnation of the humble revelations of a brother or sister in Christ. I know it is difficlt son, allow the pain of it and trust God to work His work in it, but don’t ever let the devil tell you that is “who you are.” It isn’t, because your life is hidden with Christ in God and you are glorious.
Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing Pastor Bob. Christians just don’t have to struggle with these things, right?Knowing that a Pastor shares these burdens has been an enormous comfort and encouragement.
Gratefully, the Lord has been my very present help.
You are prayed for!