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Today: Psalms 30:8-12; Mark 13:1-31; Leviticus 14
Psalm 30
“You have turned my mourning into dancing for me; You have untied my sackcloth and encircled me with joy, that my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” Psalm 30:11-12
The story of my life continues in Psalm 30. After my near death experience, I still wasn’t ready to come to Jesus. You’d think that God sending four angels to save me and bringing me back to life would be enough. But I am stubborn and stupid. I still needed some coercing from on high…
There was one big change though. I didn’t want to die anymore. I had already tried that and I knew it wasn’t the answer. But I was still gripped in a raging depression and needed help with that. So I began seeing a psychiatrist. After hearing my story, she promptly put me on a regimen of antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and sleeping pills (yes, she gave me the same kind of drug I had tried to kill myself with). I spent the next three years in a drug induced fog as she experimented on me with various drug concoctions. She even put me on lithium for a while (wicked drug).
God bless her, she was a nice lady and meant well. But pills can’t cure depression. Pills are only a bandaid on a bloody stump. I was empty. I started drinking again, a toxic addition to the prescription drugs.
Finally, blessed finally, I DID wake up after a drunk me, stupidly driving, careened off an icy highway one night. My spinning car stopped mere yards from a steep cliff. God bellowed at me so loudly that I looked around to see if He was standing there. “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. I’M NOT SAVING YOU AGAIN.”
He meant it and I knew it. I stopped drinking cold turkey. And I never went back to my psychiatrist. She wouldn’t have approved of my plan to slowly wean myself off the drugs. She had told me that I needed to take them for the rest of my life.
Three months later I was completely drug and alcohol free. Twenty three years later I have not spent one minute in depression since then. God has completely healed me. I never went to see another psychiatrist or even a counselor. It was just God and me. I dove into Him through prayer, meditation, and His love letters (the Bible). He, only He, is my healing. Now after two decades, my relationship with Him continues to grow deeper, more magical, full of joy, wonder, and contentment. There is no end to His wonderful love. This is why my soul sings praise to Him and cannot be silent. I will give thanks to Him forever!
Mark 13
In Mark 13 Jesus prophesies that the Jewish temple will some day be torn down (this happened in 70AD, less than 45 years later). Jesus also prophesied about the end times which have yet to come. Many people think we are living in them right now. I have no idea. I think things must get much worse than they are now to match Jesus’ dire prophesies.
But I do believe that some day ALL that Jesus prophesied will come true and we will “see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven.” (v.26-27) Hallelujah! Come, Lord Jesus!!
