[Darris McNeely] We’re into the winter months here in the northern hemisphere. During the winter, people often become discouraged, sad – sometimes they slip into what might be called a mild depression. We’ve been talking about the question of whether or not a Christian can face depression and still be a Christian. The answer right up front is yes. Last time we talked about the example of Elijah. I wanted to turn to the book of Luke chapter 12 right now and look at an example with part of the teaching from Jesus Christ as He addressed this very issue of our attitude and our approach toward God and help us to understand. Beginning in verse 22, He says, “Take no thought for your life – what you shall eat, neither for the body, nor what you put on. Life is more than meat and the body is more than clothing.” Then He goes on to talk about how God can clothe the birds and take care of the animals of this realm, and He can also take care of us (Luke 12:22-28). And so Christ is addressing when He says “take no thought for your life” a very common approach that we can get into as humans, where we might be concerned, we might be discouraged, we might be sad. We might be depressed about certain aspects of our life and things that have happened to us and things that have come upon us. Christ said don’t worry. He did address the very issue down in verse 28. He said, “O ye of little faith.” And He said when we get a little bit overly concerned and it may be prolonged to the point of discouragement, He said we need to look at our example of faith. Is it strong or has it lapsed for a period of time? That’s the critical question.

Now, to be worried – that’s normal. That’s human. But if we allow that to continue day after day, week after week, continually, every time something happens, without having the ability, the reservoir of confidence and of courage and even faith in our life to recognize God is on His throne, God is working with us, God has given to us the gift of His Holy Spirit, then we might be getting off base and we can be prone to be worried about some of these matters that we shouldn’t be. It does come down to a matter of faith, and faith is a very, very important and deep subject when it comes to dealing with sadness and discouragement. And faith can help us to keep reliance upon God, and faith can help us to get back on our feet to face the day, to get out of bed each morning when maybe we might be so discouraged we don’t even want to get out of bed – we want to get back into life and engage – faith is the essential element that allows us and helps us to do that.

And so, take Christ’s warning, His admonition here – His gentle admonition to us – to heart and examine our faith at various times and make sure that we are reliant upon God, Who is the One Who’s able to sustain this world, take care of the animal kingdom and most importantly and essentially, hear the prayers and help those of the human family to deal with the aspects of life that are so important to us.

Next time, we’ll talk about a very important key from the apostle Paul and one of his writings that will help us to understand and deal with this matter of discouragement and depression.

That’s BT Daily. Join us next time.