I never believed in depression. I was always under the false impression that depression either came from sin, doubt, or some vice. Although I have struggled with depression since high school, I was never able to admit it and, therefore, get the help that I needed. My grades, friendships, and work ethic would all take a hit while I threw myself into any number of my hobbies (read “distractions”). I would maintain one or two connections, but completely shut out everyone else around me. At the beginning of the year, I made the decision to seek professional help. The discussions were long, and it turns out there are many things that have gone into this problem that I had refused to recognize before. Financial obligations, social obligations, and my responsibilities as a husband had fallen through the cracks, and now I am slowly putting together the pieces. I have a secular job now on top of the work with the church in Florida in order to restore some of the financial damage that has been caused. I have found help through counseling, reading, and the late Thomas Keating’s centering prayer (a silent meditation technique introduced to me by a friend who shares similar experiences with me).
My feelings or mood or whatever you want to call it come from spiritual growth (often called the dark night of the soul) and professional and social situations of which some of you are aware. The radical change from my conservative religious background to a, still conservative, but more open worldview has led me to relinquish long held beliefs that I have found to not be helpful in fulfilling Christ’s command the love one’s neighbor as themselves. While the road to recovery is still long before me, I thank you all for your patience despite me being someone very difficult to be patient with. Hopefully, I will be returning to a mental state that allows me to perform in a way that most have been familiar with and have come to love. I appreciate the private messages, the missed calls, the voicemails, and the other ways that many of you have attempted to contact me. Though I have not responded like I should, they have been very encouraging to me despite my silence. This new job has given me a lot of hope, and it has made me feel like I am better equipped to serve my wife in giving her the life that she deserves. Thank you again, and I hope to return fully to you soon. God bless each of you.
Love is patient, brother! Glad you are seeking the help you need. Praying.
Hi Daniel,
I forwarded a message to you written by Dr. Kharrazian b/c I think it is very important for you to know that there is more to depression than you have been taught in Christianity. I know you realize that now but along w/ the education & information you have acquired since you made your decision to get help, there’s always more. I am a believer in Jesus Christ & His Word, but the things I have learned from Jesus were not shared by the religion of Christianity. They were shared w/ me as God used my hard places w/ my health & my past experiences. I am so sorry for you & anyone who is a believer who has been hindered from the truth regarding these issues that many times have to do w/ our physical, psychological realm, our brain, our unresolved issues that are stored away in our brains, etc. I have found that religion causes people to hide, to perform, to be dishonest instead of being honest w/ ourselves, others (certain people) & esp. our Heavenly Father. I had to make my way thru all of it & come out on the other side to find the truth! TRUTH about self most of all which also reveals more truth about our God. Then we find new perspectives & new interpretations in the bible & so much more. Please read this article by Dr. Kharrazian. I do not take any online courses which have a cost as this one does, but I do glean from the articles & I have watched Dr. Kharrazian many times on youtube. Also if your brain is inflamed, neurofeedback &/or EMDR are very helpful. You can find much info. on these treatments online & on youtube if you are ever guided in this direction. If not, the info. can be shared w/ others. I thank God for your new beginning & more freedoms to come. Continued blessings, Donna
Hello Daniel,
I feel for your suffering, but also know that our Heavenly Father will turn it to wisdom and blessing for you.
I know that one can suffer from depression because of a simple sodium deficiency. Be sure to get that checked. That happened to me.
Hi. The mere fact that u are exposing this sickness means that you are unfolding it from your life. I can relate to you because I also suffered from depression and resorted to alcohol.Now I’m clean and concentrating on my theological studies.I have found the best way to defeat depression is exercising.Do some resistance training and it does wonders for u.Stay blessed and you will bounce back.
Take care Daniel… it’s just as important….Blessings
I can’t think of any particular scripture telling men to “serve” their wives. I do think that letting her help share your emotional burdens is more what a woman longs for. Spelling out to one other trusted human being about shame, anger, feelings of being out of control, learning specifically how to please one another sexually, etc. chips away at the dangerous isolation that men are so prone to. Ask her and she’ll agree and she can help you connect IF you don’t try to protect her from your “dark emotions”. She wants to hear your heartbeat and you need her support. Serving is how men avoid intimacy. Peace.
Daniel,
I appreciate your openness about what you have been facing. I now have a better understanding about many things you have struggled with.
We have dealt with serious depression issues in our broader family. I would love for our contact to be renewed so that I could share some insights on this.
Please give me a call at 334-734-2133 or email me at larryrouse@aubeacon.com
You are in my prayers
This is a part of my deal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aymvX-OrlS0
I can understand Bill’s video comment very well. It applies to me & to many others in Christianity & in the world but there is hope & there is a lot of help out there these days.
Thank you for sharing Daniel. Praying for you and look forward to hearing from you again. I appreciate your instruction.
Danny
Thank you touching our souls with your honest expression of what has been going on in your life.
You are never difficult to be with!! We know that our Lord will continue to strengthen you and bring you through these difficulties.
We keep you and Laura in our prayers!!
a if you get a chance you should get a mic for questions and comments
Brother Daniel,
I have been greatly blessed by your teaching videos with Don and for Don. I came to this site today to check out your home page. Then I read your humble sharing about some emotional struggles. I want to say first, how glorious and wonderful it was for me to find a new “teacher” on line, with great knowledge for such a young age.
I am 70 and have been walking in the Lord under His loving discipline for 50 years. My wife and I just celebrated our 50th. We have never been more in love and all because we sold out to the Lord in 1970 and decided to keep our life simple and free from the American pursuit of things and houses. I want to encourage you as strongly as I can. You are greatly gifted and the Lord has already and will continue to bless and use you.
Be most careful about the false pursuit of financial gain. Remember Paul’s closing words to Timothy about riches.
I am sending you something I wrote recently as a meditation and if you can ever check it out, I would be glad. I’m sending it because I want you to know that I am with you and Don and William 100%.
The Lord set me apart 10 yrs. ago at my retirement and had me restudy all scripture without any commentaries. He said He was going to be my instructor. After 7 yrs. The Lord had showed me everything you three are now proclaiming to the church. I remain your faithful servant and brother.
God’s strategic plan:
To all my brothers who love the truth,
The Revelation:
There are only 3 possibilities, 1.past and fulfilled, 2.historist, the last 2000 years and counting, or 3.the futurists, in our future.
Only one time stamp can be correct. So every interpretation from the other two will always be wrong about every passage.
So if the Beast for example was in the first century and you believe it’s in your future then you fall into Speculation land which is endless and you will never know: It’s Donald Trump, it’s Barack Obama, it was Adolph Hitler, or Genghis Khan, or Mao or the Pope, so you see without a time stamp you’re lost. Everyone’s guess is just as good as the next brain.
Now God presents Himself ln scripture as the only one who can tell us the future, and He states this as the proof that He is God.
“I alone tell you the future and then I make it happen.” Isaiah 41:21-23, Isaiah 46:9-11, Isaiah 48:1-5.
If God is true then to prove Himself to history He must predict the future and then tell us the time frame of it and then it must come to pass as He said.
The fall of Babylon and Egypt and the Assyrians and the Greeks all happened as God prophesied through His prophets and the prophecy always had to happen in that Prophets lifetime. If it didn’t God said that prophet was false, don’t listen to him, so again without a time stamp all prophecy is meaningless, or simple guessing.
Therefore, why would God give us a prophecy that can’t be proved until 2000 years later and counting? He would not. That would violate His own plan. He must tell us when and then fulfill the prophecy within that time stamp.
This is the apocalypse and this is why God gave us the time stamp at the beginning, these were to be events that would “shortly come to pass and were at hand.” (Rev.1:1-3)
He gave us the time stamp, so we can look backwards for the match up from Jerusalem’s history and then we can show the world the Bible is true because God gave us the details and they were fulfilled as he said.
So how do the enemies of the church counter this brilliant plan of God to prove Himself to the unbelievers, simple, you brain wash the church with the false doctrine that God’s prophesies are all in our future and haven’t happened yet and therefore no one can know.
This is exactly what the Jesuits’ did to fight the Protestant reformation; Alberto Ribera created the doctrine that the Revelation wasn’t in the first century as God told us in the first three verses, but was in the future. And how did they pull that off, by teaching the sheep just one lie, that the Hebrew Prophets words were literal, failing to use God’s own interpretive rule that He gave us from Numbers 12, where He said, when he speaks to His prophets He always speaks to them in dreams and visions and dreams and visions have to be interpreted, they are not literal.
So our modern day Pharisees do the same thing the first century Pharisees did, misinterpret the prophet’s words as literal and therefore look for an earthly king ruling over all flesh, and waiting for the wolf to lie down with the lamb, simple and done.
And this is why the futurists have to attack first Jesus clear and definite time stamp of His own for the vengeance of His martyrs being “this generation” and the events of the Olivet discourse being “this generation.” Matthew 23:36 (KJV)
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
Matthew 24:34 (KJV)
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Ribera’s 500 page book on Revelation that he wrote in 1587 fell dormant until in 1784 Manuel Lacunza, another Jesuit resurrected it and then it fell into the hands of the Plymouth Brethren of Edward Irving and John Nelson Darby and then to America and the Scofield Bible and the rest is history.
So now we have an entire generation that was brain washed into believing the Hebrew prophet’s words are literal and future.
If anyone disagrees with my summary of God’s strategic plan then I ask,
“You tell me the one that is better and give me the scripture to back it up please. “