And so you are depressed. Who wouldn’t be?
If you claim to be a person who is never depressed then you may be fooling yourself.
I will never forget talking to a leader of an institution who claims he is never depressed. I asked him why and I asked him how he deals with it. He says, “I do not know what depression is because I always come to God in prayer.”
Wow! I said to myself. This loser is better than David, Elijah, Peter and Paul in the Bible. He thinks he’s superman and now he has made me depressed!
No one is exempted from depression.
Feeling bouts of depression is normal unless you are abnormal. But staying depressed all the time is abnormal.
Today we will tackle the next one.
7. CONSULT THE EXPERTS
The Bible says in a multitude of counselors there is wisdom.
Try to ponder that for a while.
Take the reverse of the statement. It simply means that if you think by yourself and you do it by yourself then you may be dumb.
Most people are embarrassed in asking for advice. They are afraid that people may judge them as dumb. But the truth is that you are already dumb if you think that way.
Wise people understand that there are people who may have gone through the same situation, handled it well, discovered ways to deal with it and getting advice from them would indeed be very helpful.
People have come to me for advice. I try to counsel them to the best of my ability. But the one thing I have observed about this is that it is quite easy to offer advice to people who are in trouble because I am away from the situation. It is quite a different thing to be in the middle of the situation and the seriousness of it could have a debilitating effect on my own ability to see things. Having an outsider’s view and perspective at this point would be very helpful.
Now here is another key.
When the advice is given, you pray about it and when you have peace, and it confirms to the teaching of The Word… then do it!
Somebody says: “Advice is free: The right answer will cost plenty.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. says: “It’s a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, and normal to ignore it.”
Often times it is not the lack of advice that pulls a person down. It is the lack of resolve for the person to work on the advice and follow it.
Ever wondered why The Bible is full of godly advices yet people ignore it?