Spiritual Depression - A Deficiency of Joyful Moments

We are living in depressing times. The world is in a mess and the future appears bleak and uncertain. We try to deny or bury our sorrows and we end up becoming addicted to things, pleasure, and other hedonistic pursuits. Such addictions provide us with temporary relief but leave our hearts empty and only increase our desire for more satisfaction.  We are living in a rat race and behaving more like rats and we wonder why we are not happy in spite of all the material gains we have made.

We have made money our god – we measure our success by how much we have or achieved. We pursue happiness by getting things or people or activities to fill our lives.  We read news reports about “top-earning dead celebrities” – Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley have been named by Forbes as the richest dead celebrities!

Unfortunately, we are blind to the truth that many of the celebrities do not have happy lives.  We fail to see that money, fame and pleasure are the very things that can become robbers of our joy.  We spend our lives pursuing happiness and end up with frustration and despair when death reminds us of non being, non doing and no where. 

Barbara De Angelis, a secular writer, has described the phenomenon of “real moments deficiency” as the cause of our being deficient in peace, contentment and joy.  We are in fact suffering from a deficiency of joyful moments which results in spiritual depression. Jesus came to bring joy to the world. When we receive Christ as our Saviour, we have the joy of salvation and the wonderful promise of an intimate relationship with God as our Heavenly Father.

In his testimony in November last year, Dr.  Richard Teo who died recently shared the following:

“True joy I discovered comes from interaction. Over the last few months I
was so down. Interaction with my loved ones, my friends, my brothers in
Christ, my sisters in Christ, and only then was I able to be motivated,
able to be uplifted. To share your sorrow, to share your happiness – that’s
true joy.”

It is sad that so often it is only when we are faced with a terminal illness that we discover what true joy is. How simple life becomes when we pay attention to the joyful moments that God sends into our lives when we enjoy the wonders of God’s creation and the loving encounters with our loved ones. Our task is to become more aware of the things that rob us of joy – when we live our lives through the lives of others, when we are judgmental and critical, or when we are too busy with pleasing others instead of being true to ourselves.

It is inevitable that we will have spiritual depression when we are slaves of money in our materialistic world.  The prescription for spiritual depression is to understand the truth that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to deliver us from the “Egypts” of our lives. Only then can we pray for God to take our lives and make them the instruments of His love and grace. As we do so, our moments and our days will flow in ceaseless praise to God.

Spiritual Amnesia

After the Jews were delivered from their slavery in Egypt, they were warned of the danger of forgetting God when they enter the Promised Land. We read in Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17-18:

"But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt…..

He did all this so you would never say to yourself, "I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy." Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath."

The story of the exodus of the Jews from their slavery in Egypt is a graphic description of our own spiritual journey. God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to set us free from slavery to greed, pride and the fear of death. But in our materialistic and successful world, we have forgotten God - we are suffering from spiritual amnesia. St Paul has described our human condition as follows in his letter to the Romans in Chapter 1 verses 21-24:

"Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired."

We have forgotten that we are but creatures endowed with the special ability to create and not the Creator of our amazing and wonderful world. We have lost the original simplicity of man.  We need to reflect on the five enemies of true life described by Chuang Tzu:

"Love of colors bewilders the eye

And it fails to see right.

Love of harmonies bewitches the ear

And it loses its true hearing.

Love of perfumes

Fills the head with dizziness.

Love of flavors

Ruins the taste.

Desires unsettle the heart

Until the original nature runs amok.

These five are the enemies of true life.

Yet these are what "men of discernment" claim to live for.

They are not what I live for:

If this if life, then pigeons in a cage

Have found happiness!"

We have been brainwashed and corrupted by our consumeristic society that success and happiness comes from satisfying our five senses. In fact it is only when our five senses are directed towards the appreciation and awe of God's creation that we will find love, joy and peace.

The cure for spiritual amnesia is to recall what Jesus has done for us on the cross – to restore our identity as the children of God so that we can pray, Our Father Who is in Heaven.  As we do so, we will return to our Heavenly Father just as the prodigal son did when he came to his senses (Luke 15:17).  Without repentance, we cannot receive the salvation that God has given us in Jesus Christ.  But when we receive God’s gift of salvation, we will rekindle the fire of Love in our hearts.

Without the love of God, our pursuit of sanctification will lead to arrogance. Without the love of God our acts of sacrifice will only give birth to bitterness. Without the love of God, our service to and for others will become burdensome chores. Without the love of God, we turn scripture into our god and we fail to seek and obey the God of the bible.

We  need to pay attention to the Presence of God around us so that we will enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and to our listening ears, “all nature sings and around me rings the music of the spheres.” As we learn to live by the Holy Spirit we will become more aware of His activity working through and amongst us. Let us cultivate the discipline of silence and solitude so that we will abide in Christ and reap the fruit of a life that is totally surrendered to His Lordship and a mind cured of spiritual amnesia.

Reprogramming Our Minds To Change The World

”Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” (Romans 12:2)

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven" wrote John Milton. This echoes the truth of Romans 12:2 which highlights the importance of letting God transform our lives by reprogramming our minds. There is a tremendous power of Love that is in each one of us. All of us have the potential to change the world. We don't need unusual training or ability to change the world.  All that is required, according to Matthew Barnett, is "a heart that cares, a mind that’s determined, a spirit that’s willing, a cause that matters, and a person to help."

What we need is a radical change in mindset to recognise and understand the critical difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is a transient feeling of pleasure that depends on our external circumstances. Happiness has been described as the “unseen dollar” and is increasingly seen as an important factor for the health, well being and progress of the people.

Bhutan is seen as the “poster child for happiness” but many Western journalists fail to recognize and understand the underlying spiritual foundation of happiness in that country. Joy is an inner state of being that we can experience even in pain, suffering and sorrow. We can try to find happiness in hedonistic pursuits but we can only receive joy for it is a gift. In fact, it is through pain, suffering and sorrow that we often receive the gift of joy.  In a world that is increasingly becoming hungry for money, the people are experiencing a famine of joy,

Happiness is when our desires and wants are met but joy comes through what we have given of ourselves to others. When we pursue happiness, our energies are spent on earning external and materialistic rewards for ourselves. When we seek joy we embark on a journey to discover the potential for love that is within each of us. As we become channels of God's love, we receive the inner rewards of joy, hope and peace. The gurus of the world promises us many ways to find happiness but Jesus Christ came to bring joy to the world. Hence we sing the Christmas carol:

“Joy to the world! the Lord is come.

  Let earth receive her King.

  Let every heart prepare Him room,

  And heaven and nature sing”

We may experience happiness in this world but we can only find joy in the Kingdom of God. Our struggle is to live in both the world and in God’s Kingdom. But the good news is that when we confess Jesus as the Son of God, we have God living in us and we live in God (1 John 4:15). How then are we living out this good news?

Unfortunately, many of us Christians often end up becoming Pharisees who “crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden." (Matthew 23:4) We read the bible and focus on the rules on how to please God instead of reading God’s love messages to us so that we will be witnesses of the reality of having Christ in us and sharing the love of Christ with others.

In her devotional, Jesus Calling, Sarah Young makes the very important observation that when we feel driven to serve God we may see Him as a harsh taskmaster instead of a loving Heavenly Father. 

We often forget that God is sovereign and that His ways are higher than ours.  Our love for God becomes lukewarm and we lose our desire for His loving Presence. 

The worldly attitude of seeking happiness will lead us to lose our love for God. It is only when God is our first love that we will filled with His goodness and find the blessed assurance of the inexpressible joy of being lost in the wonder of God’s love. Before we can change our feelings, we need to change our behaviours. To change our behaviours, we need to change our thought patterns. And to change our thought patterns we need to change our beliefs. Psalm 13:5-6 gives us the secret recipe to cope with the times when God seems far away:

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.

  I will sing the Lord’s praise, for He has been good to me.”

When we are born of the Spirit and truly believe that we are the children of God, we will learn to trust God when we face the storms of life. As we put our trust in God, we will change our responses to negative circumstances in our lives from complaining to thanksgiving. And when we are filled with thanksgiving, we will be filled with joy.

The hymn, We’ve A Story To Tell To The Nations, spells out our calling to change the world by sharing the message of God’s love through the story of our lives. Our lives are to be the songs of God’s love that will conquer evil and to lift up the cross of Christ. When we do so, all the world’s great people will come to know the wonderful truth of God’s Kingdom of peace and light. We have the potential to change our world but it all begins with the inner journey into our own hearts. May our Lord reprogram our hearts so that we can sing:

“For the darkness shall turn to dawning and the dawning to noon day bright

  And Christ’s great Kingdom shall come on earth, the Kingdom of love and light.