If you’re suffering from any level or any frequency of depression, please hear me. You are not your depression, and your feelings are not an accurate gauge of truth. What do I mean? While you are sunken down in the dark green sea of sadness, the glory of the cosmos remains in motion around you. This world, and the universe inside of which it is hung, are beautiful and majestic… FOR YOU. In what way? So that you may take it in, breathe it in, feel the “bigness” outside of you, and feel the glory of the creation surrounding you, enfolding you, nurturing you.
That’s the way God made things. The earth itself is a miracle of beauty and power – a spinning ball of fiery rock with a living skin that grows food, animals, and splendid forests, which clean our atmosphere. I mean, WOW. We live in a world of staggering wonder!
And for you and me, people who sometimes feel the weight of sadness and human sin – the world was built in order to comfort and soothe us. Would you do something for me the next time you feel depressed? Will you try taking a long-ish walk out somewhere as far from city lights as possible? Just find a road or a forest where you can walk, breathe in deeply, and maybe even talk quietly with God.
Look around you at the little things: the plants, the birds, the shapes of the stones and pebbles around your feet. Notice the big things: the clouds, the trees, the streams or river. Take them in and ponder the glories around you. Then notice the macro-world. You stand on an enormous planet, covered in waterfalls, Chinese people, zebras, glaciers, oceans, mountains, cities… but all of this enormity swallowed up by the true size of a universe around us filled with trillions of stars and galaxies, swirling in obedience to the word of Jesus Christ.
And then notice… that the same Creator who made each detail of the universe from the smallest to the greatest, has not forgotten you. He, in fact, became a man – a hu-man like you and me. He entered into our experience of joy, of eating dinner with Mom and Dad, of learning to read and write, of making friends and losing them, of feeling sorrows and grief, of being a human creature. God became human in order to relate to you and me. He did so out of love and for His fame and glory in the world.
Think of it! The Creator, who was never created, entered into the world to join with us in our human life, to feel our feelings, but even more so, to take our guilt and sin upon Himself when He died on the cross. Somehow, in His perfect way, Jesus became our sin – He became the curse that is on humanity, and He died under the penalty that curse brings. He died for you. The very One who holds together the entire universe died on a Roman death cross to pay our sin debts to God FOR US. He built the universe to wow us, but He died FOR US. He proved His identity once and for all by coming back from the dead, and He lives today forever. Reigning. Loving. Creating and ruling over the world. He sees your pain.
I invite you to look outside of yourself. Into and past the horizon in the sky. Into and past the stars and galaxies. Know you are not alone or unknown. He forgives sinners and makes them His kids. Trust in the Lord Jesus today, for all your needs. You may struggle with depression all your life, but when you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ and confessed to Him your sinfulness, He washes you and forgives you completely. Believe it, and seek Him for a healing of your broken heart. No matter what you feel, the truth is that God so loved the world, that He gave His unique Son – that all those believing in Him would not perish, but have eternal life… and that eternal life is free from all tears and sorrow!
Be sure to click on the “Questions and Comments” page at the top of Interpreting the Cosmos if you have any feedback, or want to ask for prayer for anything.
Grace in Christ,
-Justin
