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Can I be sad and not depressed
Can I be sad and not depressed?
It' s gonna keep on, that sadness is gonna be underneath there and eventually whenever the bridge runs out you're gonna finally experience it and you're gonna go ahead and have to go through it but probably a longer time of pain that's there. One of the things that I think is helpful to do is to set a limit for your depression that's appropriate, led by the Holy Spirit.
For example, if I get a brand new shirt and I go to a restaurant and the very first day that I wear that shirt, I spill spaghetti on the shirt. I give myself 30 minutes of depression. >> [LAUGH] >> Just permissioned to feel lousy like the whole world is gonna end because this brand new shirt is ruined forever.
If I get a traffic ticket, I give myself a half a day of mourning. For the fact that I no longer have a clean record, my insurance is probably gonna go up and it's gonna cost me 120 bucks, or take one of those stupid defensive driving courses, oh my goodness. Just take a screw driver and stick me in the eye rather than do that.
Cruel and unusual punishment. I don't know how long you should take when you lose a loved one but I know that there are a lot of societies that intuitively put on black for a year and they don't do their normal activities and everyone gives the person permission to be sad, deeply sad as well they should be for a year and it doesn't mean that after a year you forget that relationship, or that you'll never hurt again, but at that point you put on your clothes and then you begin to move on with your life.
Now, I don't know what the proper time is but I would try to set a limit for any loss to say I'm gonna give myself permission to go on down to fully embrace the pain that is normal, that is natural for this loss. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 it says, for the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation but the sorrow of the world produces death.
Part of what that verse tells me is that it's okay to be sad if it's a sadness that in case of a spiritual depression leads me back to God. If it's a sadness according to a true loss that causes me to depend on God in that sadness and realize that He's all that I need but at some point you choose to move on.
Now here was my experience, my experience was when I discovered it was a spiritual problem my life and when I repented and when I confessed that sin I still felt terrible. But I realized that something had happened. I had a defective CEL. A defective CEL. Had a defective engine light, check engine light.
I still had a light that was stuck on that says something's wrong but I had already dealt with what was wrong and so by faith I had to get up and I had to do what God had asked me to do and live the way that he asked me to live and guess what, my feelings caught up with my faith.
See here's the problem many times is we defy our feelings and we let our feelings dictate what we do or we don't do. What we try and we don't try. What we risk and we don't risk. And at some point when we have had the natural process of dealing with whatever loss we have or we have fixed whatever needs to be fixed that is in our control then we move on with our life.
In Philippians the third chapter I love what Paul says he puts it in right perspective all of our loss and verse 8 it says this, more than that I count all things to be loss in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and what does he say and count them but rubbish in order that I might gain Christ.
Friends here's the good news it doesn't matter what we lose if we come out ahead as believers. You take your finances, you take your health, you even take your relationships and you add them all up and some of them are negatives and some of them are plus but when you add in there the Lord, it comes out a plus.
That's why in that same letter in Philippians 4:4 he says, rejoice in the Lord always and again I will say rejoice. Our joy comes from the fact that we have a relationship with God and the difference that it makes in this life and certainly the hope of the difference that's it's going to make in the life to come.
I had referred earlier in the service about 1 Kings 19. In 1 Kings 19 it says, that Elijah came to that place and he sat under a juniper tree and he said God why don't you just kill me? God didn't say anything to him at that time and he fell asleep and then an angel came and woke him up and gave him food to eat.
He fell asleep again and the angel came a second time and woke him up and gave him food to eat. And then he finally did hear God and here's what God said to him after sleeping and eating and sleeping and eating. 1 Kings 19:13 it says when Elijah heard the wind, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave and behold a voice came to him and said, what are you doing here Elijah? God said, you've had your pity party, you've replenished your body, it's time to get back to work.
