5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
If you never experienced depression you would not be alive; depression comes to us all, it is inevitable. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness, joy or worship. When you take the time to inventory your feelings and emotions, always take into account your capacity for depression.
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. When you experience depression you know how difficult the ordinary and simple things can become, even eating.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, as He did to Elijah, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary and simple things imaginable. Depression can turn us away from the everyday, ordinary things of God’s creation, it attempts to strip us of our joy. When the world gets complicated and you feel overwhelmed and depressed, find God in the simple things.
“Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”
The inspiration that comes to us in the ordinary things of life is our JOY – the God-given initiative against depression. Your savior knows that this life here on earth is often too much for you take on alone … but we must take the first step and invite the inspiration of God into our daily life. If we don’t, and we do something simply to overcome our depression (work, alcohol, drugs, sex, food, etc), we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something simple, the moment we do it the depression is gone.
As soon as we arise and obey, we are LIFTED out of our depression. Lifted out of the complicated emotions of depression by the simple and ordinary things of life … all because we love and serve a God that is greater than any depression or any sin in our life.