Fighting Despondency

It is a fight you know, putting down despondency. It's not an easy task. I know a few people who have never dealt with it because they have the gift of an abnormal and natural light-heartedness. They just stay happy. That's their normal state and they don't work to be that way. But that's fairly rare I think. Most of us work to stay even, balanced, happy. We work to consider the goodness and kindness of God and to reckon that these present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to the people of Christ (Ro 8:18). And since a person is only one person, consisting of various aspects like mind, emotion, body, and spirit; it is necessarily that we embrace God's good means to knowing the fullest joy. I wrote on this earlier from 1 Ki 18-19. I want to supplement that a bit today and in the days to come. Some of it will overlap with the earlier post. I suggest:

Fellowship: The writer of Hebrews repeatedly stresses the urgent need for the troubled to be together with other believers that they may be encouraged (3:13), and hold fast (3:14), and stirred up (10:23-25). The way we this happens is through assembling ourselves together (10:25) and taking interest in each one another's lives (10:32-38). This works against our shrinking back, and promotes faith to the preserving of the soul (10:39). God does not mean for a person to go through life alone. See also Pr 27:9.

Nature: The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voices are not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth and their utterances to the end of the world (Ps 119 1ff). In other words, God has written some of His glory upon the sky, and in all of His creation (cf Ro 1). The created world points to the Creator, and this is therapeutic when we take to heart what it tells us about Him, and us. It was David, the man after God's own heart, a regular sufferer, who wrote the LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. (Ps 23:1-3a). It's good to get outside.