Depression Proof

This morning one of my devotionals was from Psalm 91:1-2 “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the almighty.  I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.” 

We are facing the worst financial disaster since the great depression.  I can remember telling someone the other day how the industry I am in is “recession proof.”  I only say that from experience.  I do not know if it is “depression proof” as my industry didn’t really exist back in the thirties.  The umemployment rate is currently at 6% and some are predicting it going into double digits in the near term.  While all of this is going on, the clinical condition “depression” is running at epidemic rates in the United States and this crash in our economy will only add to the number of people fighting this horrible state of mind.  (I will be speaking about depression and the battle we have with it in the recovery community and as a society in general at The Next Step Worship Celebration at Ginghamsburg Church’s 7pm service on October 25).

I called my financial planner yesterday and said “have you ever seen anything like this?” and the reply was “no, and from what I can tell nothing like this has happened since the great depression.”  I then asked her what I should do with the couple of dollars I have sitting in the market. She said it all depends on whether this impending disaster is causing me to lose sleep at night.  I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that I quit losing sleep at night several years ago when I finally put all of my life earnings, losses, equity, screw ups, mess ups, shame, guilt, bitterness, envy, resentments and victories into “the shelter of the most high.”  I can remember the days when I allowed the world and its events to determine my emotional state as I lived through a few of my own “great depressions.”

I’ve watched this “perfect storm” evolve over the past several years.  I knew it was only a matter of time when our obsession of “things” and the need to buy them without the money to buy them would eventually catch up with us.  Credit cards and lending companies created a society in which we no longer needed cash on hand to get what we wanted.  Did God cause this economic purge to happen?  Of course not our obsession with ourselves and our own wants and needs caused this to happen.  Greed…the friend of satan caused this to happen.

As stated in Psalm 91:1-2, God protects us and allows us to rest in his shadow in times like this.  A few verses later in Psalm 91:9-10…”If you make the Most High your dwelling–even the Lord, who is my refuge–then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.” 

Only God is “Depression Proof”

P.E.A.C.E