Pain, Depression, and the devil.

You know….I don’t like to talk about the devil too often, but there are sometimes you just have to call him out on his plans to destroy all of the good things God has for your life. You see…Lately, I have been dealing with a ton of pain. The pain ranges from physical to emotional and everything in between.

For physical pain, I have been battling severe back pain for about three years. Some days it is so bad I can barely move. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that I am grotesquely out of shape and have lost all flexibility and I weigh 30 lbs. more right now than I did when Sarah and I got married. . For some reason my lower back is losing all of it’s curvature and is causing  severe muscle spasms in my upper back. As far as emotional pain, I watched my brother-in-law and sister-in-law lose their first child just over three years ago. Watching them go through this and going through this with the family was just terrible to be honest. Then in January of last year my dad was diagnosed with Cancer. After a valiant battle he lost his life and went to spend eternity with God exactly one year to the day of being diagnosed. This was brutal and still is brutal even today for my family as we just lost him four months ago. And the next area of pain for me is financially. I made a series of terrible financial decisions over the past 6 or so years that have put Sarah and I in a rough place. On top of that stuff keeps breaking and so far it has cost us thousands of dollars on top of the financial stuff that happened because of my poor choices.

The result of all of this pain…DEPRESSION. I have always been a person that finds the best in every situation. I am a glass half full kind of guy. I still think of myself in this way. What I have noticed though, is that it is getting more and more difficult to look at things this way. I think it is time (with the urging of my wife Sarah) to go talk to someone (a professional) about it. I do not think that I am clinically depressed or anything, but it is better to go see somebody now than to let it fester and turn into something bigger. The reason I mention the devil is not because he is causing all of this. You see, all of these things are just a part of the human experience. It is human to go through pain of all sorts. It is human to experience disappointment, failure, rejection, and the like.  The devil is an opportunist. He has NO REAL power! He is like a vulture in that he seeks to, as the Bible puts it, “Steal, Kill, and Destroy” He has no other task because he is on the losing end of the war. He has lost already and was defeated when Christ conquered sin and death on the cross! His only scheme (the same one he has always used) is to wait until we are at our lowest. The point at which we are beat up and vulnerable to attack.. It is at this point when he bombards us with temptation. It is much easier to give into temptation when you are week, tired, and bruised. The funny part about all of this is that even when he does this and in odd chance that we do succumb to his temptation he still loses. He may in the process damage some part of you and of other people, but ultimately he still loses. If you have given your life to Christ as I have, he loses. You are going to spend an eternity of greatness with the King and not an eternity of misery with the author of misery. The devil hates this! He wants to take as many people to his utterly alone eternity as possible.

My challenge to you is this: Don’t give up, Don’t give in, keep pushing, keep praying, keep trusting, keep believing. On the cusp of all of the pain and temptation you face lies the biggest breakthrough you have ever experienced! What the devil has meant for harm, God has meant for good! We are all going to experience pain. Pain is unavoidable. The irony in all is that pain actually produces growth. As much as I have been experiencing pain lately I would not trade any of it because I am experiencing some of the greatest growth of character and trust of my life.

Does it hurt any less? No. But at least I know that a lot of the pains are just growing pains. I am still facing a variety of temptation from all sorts of different places in my life on a daily basis. It is only by God’s grace that I can stand up under those temptations, but as I trust him each moment and each step, he gives me exactly what I need. Praise be to God for his faithfulness!

I leave you with these two promises from the Bible:

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

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