What Depression Means to Me – Never Enough God

Gentle Reader,

I am listening to Beth Moore teach at the Passion 2012 conference via Livestream. Though her message centers on “the woman with an issue of blood” in Luke 8 and any number of wonderful things can be taken from it, two sentences have been burned into my brain:

God is not a consumable commodity. You can’t use Him up.

Oh, yes. Amen and amen.

It’s easy for me to think I’ve reached the bottom of His mercy. To believe that there’s no more grace left for me. When dark, oppressive thoughts seem so attractive and it seems easier to give in than to get up, I tremble in fear. Will God leave me to my own devices? There are numerous places in Scripture that talk about God allowing people to get what they think they want. Will that happen to me?

Honestly, if I choose to be stubborn, then, yes, probably. God doesn’t force His will and way on any of us. Cain and Abel. David and Bathsheba. Moses and the rock. They all did what they wanted.

Oh, but wonder of wonders! The Prodigal Son. The Woman with an Issue of Blood. Psalm 51. I can think of no instance when God does not respond to our honest admission of need. To our repentance. There are consequences to our actions, of course, but that true heart cry immediately restores the relationship. Puts us in right standing. There is never a moment in which we say, “God, forgive!” that He will not respond with anything other than, “Yes!”

This concept is larger than sin and repentance, however. There is a day-by-day desperate dependence upon God that I am just beginning to understand. I woke up yesterday feeling sad. I woke up today feeling sad. I will probably wake up tomorrow feeling sad. But it is SO TRUE that His mercies are new every morning! He gives me just enough strength, just enough grace, just enough…well, guts, to walk through each day. I have to choose to take what He gives, but He always gives it. It’s always offered. He never fails.

God never fails.

He is the Always.

Grace and peace,