“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Isaiah 30:18-21

How anxious do you get? Do you get the feeling of being condemned and rejected by God? Depression and mind illness can cause us to be very negative and our mind produces thoughts featured with doubts and fears. When we go wrong, there is the attendant guilt and sometimes an overwhelming impression of blame. This is a difficult mind set and causes people so much fear and anguish. 

We believe the Word of God and try to obey it. We have put our trust in Jesus, the only Saviour, and know with all our heart that He alone can save us. Yet at points in our life we can find ourselves in the pit of despair. It is a dreadful place and getting out of it is painful and takes time. This passage from Isaiah is particularly helpful and assures us of hope in the Lord. 

At the heart of our trouble is the spectre of sin in our life, and all the attendant guilt that goes along with it. Our heart often leads us astray and we do not really want to face  up to our wrong thinking, speaking and doing. We want our own way even when it leads us down to death. We need to face up to our sin and repent before the Lord of our rebellion and hatefulness. We try to fill the void with something else but it does not work, for we are made for God and cannot operate properly without Him. When we bow our knees to the Lord then He can help us. He forgives us freely for our sin and makes us new people, able to know His presence and understand His ways.

God does send adversity and allows us to be troubled. When our mind is not working properly, we can think and do things that we would not normally do. It seems that the love of God goes out the window and we succumb to wrong behaviour and speaking. It is like “self” has got the upper hand and has taken over calling the shots. We must deny self, for it will lead us down wrong paths and cause us to put other things in place of God. This can be anything from sex to drugs to even eating and drinking. We can let our human life dictate the shots and take us away from the life of faith in God. We can even use the ordinary things in life to become idols to us and they become a stumbling block, like eating or drinking. We must lay all before the Lord and ask Him to take our life and allow us to walk in His way and not giving in to our human desires. 

Which is the real “us?” If we are having a crisis, we can make life-changing decisions that affect us and the people around us in a big way. Because we are not thinking clearly, and emotion and delusional thinking are happening in our heads, we don’t really know what we are doing nor are we thinking about the implications. When we start to become clearer in our mind, it is terrible to look back at our behaviour and try to make sense of it. We feel ashamed of our sin and foolish decisions. We want to be forgiven, but God seems silent. We look into the Scripture to find comfort and healing. Forgiveness is offered to us when we repent and turn from the sin and obey the Lord. We may fall down many times but the Lord is so willing to forgive. We must not presume upon His forgiveness but we fight the desires of the flesh and bow before him in contrition. It is painful, but God will teach us His way and give us the victory. 

Where is God? Why does He allow His child to suffer like this? Where is His sovereign will? Who’s fault is the fallout? When the mind is depressed, every day is a battle to get through and feel “normal.” Keeping busy works sometimes, but thoughts of our sinfulness and the holiness of God, bring anxiety. We must bring ourselves to the Lord and listen to His Word, the Bible as He speaks to us. Our comfort is in the Scripture and not in the things of this life. We foster our life with God and keep to His narrow way laid out for us in Scripture. God does allow us to face deep sorrows, but He never puts us through something we cannot handle. In the midst of the trial He will be with us and give the strength for the day in hand. We learn to trust Him and not fret about the future, which leads only to anxiety and evil.

It is so hard to know the answers. Isaiah says  “we will weep no more.” When we cry for help God our Father will answer us. He will not leave us without comfort, but will come to us. We long to know the liberty of living in His free air. We can know His freedom for He promises to deliver all who come to Him in truth and are sincere. He will change us and give us complete victory over ourselves. There is a way out in God for every sufferer if we should want to know it, and we earnestly seek it. God gives grace to the humble and strength to the broken hearted. 

God is gracious and rises to show us compassion. Do not loose hope. Do not let go of your faith. We are to “wait for Him.” God will keep His people safe, though we may not know the outcome of His purposes or understand all the things that happen to us. The end of the passage says that God will guide us and show us the way. We might not see it, or think that the places God requires us to go, are a good idea, but we trust in Him. The Lord of all knows what He is doing and He will love His people and act justly at all times. We cannot untangle the labyrinth of thoughts but we can entrust them to our loving God.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Don’t be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil.”

Proverbs 3:5-7

The bread of adversity and water of affliction will not last forever. We will learn how to get out of the pit. God forgives us, and we have to forgive ourselves and realise we are worth something and learn to care for ourselves. We build our confidence to take on the different aspects of our life and become humbled and with a grateful attitude for what we have or can do. God can restore things that human beings can’t. We wait for Him, our loving God, to lift us up as we climb out of the pit and get our lives back. We stay well in gratefulness and love to the one who keeps us each day. It is importantly to keep a teachable spirit toward the things of God and we must fortify our mind with good things to read and listen to. This is difficult too, for there are many false teachers and people who do not have a high view of Scripture and we are easily lead astray. We need to know the Scripture for ourselves and make it our great interest in our life as we read and learn. Let the Holy Spirit guide you as you read and obey the voice of conscience when it speaks to you. God will guide you in every right way and enable you to live life keeping well and steady in heart and mind. 

Do not be discouraged but go to your Lord and God and He will pardon and change you and teach you His everlasting ways.