Tag: personal comments

The School of Friends

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“As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

1 Samuel 18:1

“But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Ruth 1:16

The quality of our lives can be measured by our friends.  It takes some of us a very long time to understand this.  Often we have this mistaken belief that other things are immensely important, and we strive to make these qualities relevant and significant.  But the Spirit of God is on a whole different board, and He is wondering why we aren’t there with Him. It’s time to catch-up!

To be a friend– a companion, is a significant undertaking.  It involves channeling ones love and commitment to someone other than family.  If we have become someone’s friend, our dedication to that person can be measured. (Not everything is intangible).  So what will friendship require?  My answer is simply this:  All that is needful for the present moment.

Something ‘clicked’ inside of Jonathan when he talked with David.  There was something of understanding and an affinity that was created between them.  As I read this account I realize that this friendship was what was exactly needed for David to survive the conflicts he was coming into.  Now it certainly wasn’t the full answer, but friendship would certainly help lift him above the fray.

Ruth had this exceptional relationship with Naomi.  Ruth was locked on and quite intensely has made a strong verbal and volitional commitment to Naomi.  She is so sincere here as she makes a vow to follow and to serve.  She ‘shuts down’ her agenda and goals in order to live life through Naomi’s experience.  What a generous humility and gentleness!

“Don’t forget your friend or your parent’s friend.”

Proverbs 27:10

Both Jonathan and Ruth embraced their new calling.  Friendship is a cavern chiseled out to be an amphitheater.  It is a whole bigger and more expansive than we ever thought possible.  Its borders and boundaries go far beyond than a Wednesday night poker game with your buddies.

Recovering this new understanding of biblical friendship can be revitalizing.  When we see the fruits we wonder how we will ever transverse the path of discipleship without companionship.  It is noteworthy to point out that Jesus sent out His disciples ‘two by two’.  Sometimes, it will involve a radical (extreme) shift in thinking.  However, there can be an incredible boost coming from this relationship.

“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.”   

Helen Keller

*

ybic, Bryan

kyrie elesion.

 

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The Hours

When clinical depression is “on-the-clock” it can be sheer agony. It resists and lingers, sometimes for days and days. (It can last for months if untreated.) But it seems that it is these “hours” that are scarcely endurable. It’s truly all this “wasted” time that can seem most unbearable to the afflicted.

“I was mute and silent,
I refrained even from good,
And my sorrow grew worse.”

–Psalm 39:2, NASB

Depressed people tend to suffer in silence and isolate themselves from the outside world. When you’re depressed, you feel less motivated to go out, make contact, socialize or participate in activities, or doing anything at all. It’s all you can do just to get out of bed.

Days, even weeks can go by without wanting to see anyone or talk to anyone. This aggravates feelings of isolation. Often depressed people do not want to talk about their problem or simply feel misunderstood.

Similarly, prolonged and intense feelings of depression can lead to loneliness. Treating the symptoms of depression may help resolve the problem but it isn’t a sure thing. Finding good relationships can push you out of a depression. Loneliness often fuels my depression. Find understanding friends that you can talk with.

unbelieving-believersBeating depression or loneliness does not start with having more friends, or a relationship, although it can help. It really starts from within and is a process that takes time and care. We can be tempted to scrap friendships because they’re a lot of work. But they maybe one of the keys to healing. Experience has taught me that humans go through life in patterns. (We ‘ll do the same thing over and over again.) Even in different situations, these patterns will be repeated and simply generate the same results. A friend can be a new and strategic solution to breaking free.

It is a good thing to know that Jesus Christ sees and understands. 

But it’s also good to have someone with “skin on.”  Someone you can see and touch.  That’s precisely why we have the Church.  People who believe and touch each other deeply, helping each other up.  Depression does not do very well in the true Body of Christ.

“Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.”

Galatians 6:1-2

Dear broken believer, take solace in the people in the church. Learn to confide with those who understand. Sometimes I wonder if God has arranged my mental illness so that I will reach out to others. Perhaps He allows it to bless His Church?

“The church is not a select circle of the immaculate, but a home where the outcast may come in. It is not a palace with gate attendants and challenging sentinels along the entrance-ways holding off at arm’s-length the stranger, but rather a hospital where the broken-hearted may be healed, and where all the weary and troubled may find rest and take counsel together.” 

–James H. Aughey

aabryplain

 

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Sorting Out What is Real

It’s a windy cold, gray day here in Alaska.  Very typical for November up here in “the Last Frontier.” Just as typical  is that I have had a heaviness descend on me, (just like when the fat kid sits on the little kid at the bus stop.)

But this onslaught of present grayness seems to be a premonition, I feel, of what I face trying to survive through another long Alaskan winter, (and I don’t know if  I’m going to make it this year.)

Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking about ecosystems and symbiosis.  How the trees in a forest touch each other with their roots.  The big tree in the sun, “shares” with the little tree in the shade.  It’s the way they gently touch each other– helping, and encouraging and strengthening.

The Church is very much like this.  As a mentally ill believer, I have a lot of needs and weaknesses.  But knowing this, I draw from what God supplies by means of fellowshipping with others, and prayer, and the Word. (FYI.  I’m not good at any of the three.) But I guess I am planted in a good spot.

I think that when we finally make it to eternity, we will be interlaced with each other to the extent we really aren’t sure who is us, and who are our loved ones and our Christian ‘brothers and sisters.’  One thing is certain–we’re not going to survive the journey alone.  We just can’t do it on our own.

I must keep myself rooted firmly into “today”.  I can’t handle tomorrow’s sorrow today.  I have a special friend who believes he has to live “moment-to-moment”.  He says that this helps him navigate the hopelessness and the despair from depression.  One day at a time, and pace myself.  This, and perhaps, be just a little more gentle with myself? Maybe?

An interesting thought, not sure who said it, but it seems true:

“There are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be.” 

The transformational reason is that we grow after we hurt, that pain endured will change us.  I think this is what God has intended to happen.  (Good thing, not to waste our sorrows.  After all, we’ve already earned them.)

kyrie elesion, Bryan

(Lord, have mercy)
 
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Meeting Samson

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The story of Samson (Judges 13-16) is painful. It ranks as one of the saddest tales in Biblical history, and reading it through again only frustrates me. Have you ever seen a piece of fraying cloth. Threads have worked loose and the edges no longer hold together. The mid section maybe fine, but hem is coming apart. The issue is one of integrity.

That is what I think the judge Samson was like. Incredibly gifted, but irrevocably flawed, he was ordained to be a deliverer. Think of him as a “freedom fighter,” called and equipped to set his people free. He was a man of intense contrasts:

  1. uncommonly gifted, yet strangely unconsecrated,
  2. incredibly strong, yet spiritually weak,
  3. called to deliver, but yet died as a captive

You might say he could never conquer himself. Forbidden things became permissible. He never could really say the most important word– No! Lust drove him as often as the Spirit of God did. Samson became a tragic figure in the history of Israel, known more for his failures than his victories.

“Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him” (Judges 16:20, NIV).

This is perhaps the most tragic verse in Scripture. Samson had compromised to the point of being released from his gift. His attitude was that it would always be there for him, but that wasn’t the case anymore. They would gouge out his eyes, and chain him to a millstone to grind out grain.

Interestingly, in Hebrews 11:32 Samson is mentioned as an example of faith. But how much pain was afflicted on him, and how more brightly would’ve been if he would’ve learned to resist his appetites.

I have a tendency to fray at the edges myself, leaving me with an unsettled feeling. The hems don’t always hold. They come apart. The story of Samson reminds me of my need to watch myself closely. The lesson is loud and clear. Perhaps there is a Samson in everyone of us.

aabryscript

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