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MSeaman
Member



Joined: 2005/4/19
Posts: 772
Michigan

 Re:

is self hate rooted in shame?

We were discussing this in my ladies prayer group and one of the ladies shared that she finds it hard to "love your neighbor like yourself" when she feels hate towards herself sometimes. I too can relate to this feeling. It seems to be prevalent in females that I know.


_________________
Melissa

 2007/7/25 13:32Profile









 Re:

Hia Brother Aaron. Been praying.

What I'd like to see is the Body of Christ working very much harder to care enough about each other and "love one another" enough to read their Bibles and ask The LORD to teach them how to "Walk in The Spirit", so that they are walking Ministers to the rest of the Body.

When I hear "trauma", I think of Richard Wurmbrand and literally millions of others who have been to the borders of hell and back and came back swinging because they were "others-minded-only" ... that was their cure, WITH the Word of GOD and His Precious Holy Spirit.

I find most of people's inability to "thrive" is from "self" pity or just being stuck in the "self" mode ---- "Biblically" speaking.

The greatest antidote to trauma is Compassion & being "others focused only" as Jesus was.

I DO agree that "time" is needed and the Body should be there WITH THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT, to minister Christ to that individual, but 'any' system that even so much as plants one seed of "self-focus" into the mix, I don't feel is 'fully' Biblical.

Reading the Foxe's book of Martyrs and "Jesus Freaks", it's hard to see any cases of PTSD or depression that causes one to hurt others or these folks lacking in love or their responsibilty to their own families Etc ... Why ? ... because of LOVE. Or the desire to Love as He's commanded and will 'grow' it into us if we stare at Him Only.

Love for GOD First and then Love of all others 2nd.

When "self" is focused on too much .... LOVE for others GOES-GONE-KAPOOT.

We can "say" we love till the moon quits shining but LOVE is a verb ... it is our actions only.

IF ... the Bible alone is not the way .... it is a false way.

I've known two Pastors who had the gifts operating in them ... or more easily described ... operated by dependence on God to counsel. They could see through the person to the heart of the problem and with all the compassion of Christ ... give Biblical answers Only. Like the oil that ran off of Aaron's beard. The great High Priest would work through them, not being indifferent to our sufferings.

MOST problems people have is "self-focus" and that is Very Biblical.

There is never any excuse for one human being to physically hurt another human being. NEVER!

"Self" is the problem.

We may not all be "perfect" yet, most especially with how we verbally express ourselves. James says, "the same is a Perfect man" ... but as far as how we live our lives, we are without excuse if we ever hurt another living thing physically or intentionally set out to damage another person for life, especially children.

Past or present Traumas or no traumas.


Hope you understand that I can let others call me on the phone and listen for hours and days at a time to all of their pain and cry with them over their stories and actually physically feel the pain they feel, but at the end of it all ... we only go to the Bible.

We are responsible before God for all of our responses/reactions/actions in the end.

What healed 'me' most, through all I had been through with going through 7 homes, was to see "the suffering of others" and to KNOW that "GOD chose or allowed" my circumstances before my birth ... like He did every person spoken of in the Bible, like Joseph, just for one .... to make me who HE wanted me to be ... for reasons we may not even know fully yet .... so for anything that HE does, we must Thank Him, because in the Long Run .... it's ALWAYS for HIS GLORY ... and then for "others-only-also" and to increase wisdom & our compassion level for all.

Again, putting "others" before ourselves, as GOD did while here and bringing every thought captive to the obedience of HIM Who 'is' Love, we'll find freedom ..... the more we are abused, the more oil HE is squeezing out of us FOR "others" and for His Glory. If we could just view all of our torments that way, that they are From Him and For Him and "for others" and to avoid or to die to "self", we'll be O.K. bro.

Some of our greatest Missionaries were those who were horrifically abused. :-D

LOVE you brother. Heart to heart.

Sis Annie

 2007/7/25 14:07









 Re:

Shame is just unresolved guilt or false guilt.

I had the same question years ago about this "self-hate" issue and posed it to an old retired Missionary & Bible Professor and he enlightened me really quick with "NO man hateth his own flesh" .... Whoa, that changed my psychology really quickly. Amen.

It's all back to this "self-focus" only and not being "others minded always" as Jesus was and some of our greatest men and woman in Christian History.

I have books about woman Missionaries who's sufferings are so beyond belief yet they never had time to worry about or feel things about themselves.

The work that He began in us He will complete --- and we are just to Trust that and go our way "doing good".

Bless you Melissa, Always.

 2007/7/25 14:13
roaringlamb
Member



Joined: 2003/6/11
Posts: 1519
Santa Cruz California

 Re:

Something that I have wondered for awhile is how did the saints of old cope?

It seems today people will do everything but do what the Bible says. People become so obsessed with going to counsellors, and doctors, but leave behind the advice found in Scripture.(I am not saying that there are not cases in which doctoral help is needed)

When I read verses like these, I wonder what God would think of the quickness to trust "other" counsellors-
Jer 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

Isa 2:22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

P.S. Hello Annie how ya doin?


_________________
patrick heaviside

 2007/7/25 14:19Profile









 Re:Somebody Help .......

I think I'm losing my mind.
If this keeps up between the Armenians {HA - arminians} and the Calvinists much longer, I've considered taking some psychotropics so I don't start doing all of my posts like brother jarona.

YOU KNOW HOW BROTHER JARONA POSTS DON'T YOU AND IF YOU DON'T WHY NOT - DON'T YOU READ ALL THE POSTS ON THIS ENTIRE FORUM ?

Then again, it may just be a nervous breakdown cuz now I'm laughing so hard that tears are coming.

When you don't know whether to laugh or cry ... don't ya think I'm ready for a frontal lobotomy or something more minimally invasive like Shock Therapy ??? I could do EST here at home just by slicing my extension cord. Haaaaaa.

If I see one more Arminian vs Calvinism or vice versa thread I'm threatening you all right now, I got a knife and I will use it. Then my blood will be on whoever's heads.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Actually, I'm hanging man - how are you ?

:-?

Seriously though brother ~ Thanks for asking. I am hanging and that's GOOD. Thanks.

Hope yer well too!

We'll figure out this LOVE thing soon enough brother. Persecution brings out the BEST in us.

Gosh, this is the first time I've actually hoped for some catastrophic event, just so that we'd start pulling together instead of apart doctrinally. Maybe we need Tony Blair here with the Quartet to solve our issues. HAR !

It's just a controversy that's gone on since Awwwww, who knows ... yet us SI members think we'll finally crack it.

Well it's cracking me alrighty, I'm ready for something that we ALL can pull together on.

Maybe you could come up with a Good Thread that will unify these Forces here. A force multiplied would certainly be a black eye to the devil and a shining light to the lost huh ?

Well, we'll see if someone of all of us can pull such a thread off.
We'll offer HUGE prizes for the Member who does it. Yeah !

Though Greg's wedding announcement got us all in one league. Maybe we need more weddings or something.

Welp buddy, I better get to bed before the sun comes up ... I may think it's time to get up then.

LOVE YA.
the nite-loon. :-?

 2007/7/26 6:13
CJaKfOrEsT
Member



Joined: 2004/3/31
Posts: 901
Melbourne, Australia

 Re:

Quote:

GrannieAnnie wrote:
Love for GOD First and then Love of all others 2nd.



I'd slightly alter this statement to, "Demonstrate your love of God, by loving others". After all, the second greatest commandment is "like" the first.

It is interesting to note that Wilder (whose website I cited earlier) found his foundational understanding of what he calls "The Life Model" as a missionary child growing up under intense persecution. It was the very trauma experienced, faced and dealt with, which produced the loving community which he was part of, all spontaneously, without the help of psychologists and counselors. The thing is, in that environment, "liars" are separated by "buyers", as a matter of life and death. It is hard to make such a distinction where there is no persecution.

Sadly, in the West, the common "Christianity" is one that avoids suffering at all costs, and therefore receives none of the benefits attached to it. Consider Paul's words, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the [b]fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death[/b]" (Phil 3:10). Is it truly possible to "know him, and the power of his resurrection" separate from "the fellowship of his sufferings" and without "being made conformable unto his death"?

Wilder noted that one of the greatest failures in counseling comes from the failure to walk someone through hopeless despair. Rather than identify with the person's pain, and endure it with them, they try to help them be "positive" the moment they start to become negative. Faith is not remaining positive, it is trusting God in spite of negativity. Rather than actually leading people [b]to God[/b], with patience when things get desperately impossible, they point to God, and leave them to find their own way.

Romanian exile, Josef Tson noted that the temptations that he faced, while in Western decadence, were harder to endure than the while under the constant threat of death at the hands of Communist authorities. Brother Yun made similar observations, noting that the worst persecution he faced was in the West, within the "church", and he had the bones in both legs smashed, while in prison, among other things.

It's nice to romanticise about the early church, but it was the endured suffering that gave them the ability to endure. Even looking to Wurmbrand. Do you really think that he would have been as great a man of God, had he not endured his tortures? Listen to his testimony, and hear the first part, with the regrets faced as they were taken to jail.

While many in church avoid suffering that comes as a result of enduring the tortured soul, the counselor has not casually chosen to do this, but as a full time profession. Why is it that the heart surgeon and the oncologist receive our respect and appreciation when they are allowed the luxury of detachment, while the counselor must bear the full weight of their patients pain?

Satan is having a field day in the Western churches because we have failed to recognise the pandemic at our doorsteps. I'm one of the lucky ones, in that my family made contact with people who understood the workings of the mind and were mature enough to love us through our crises. The "church" was incapable of doing anything to help, and greatly exaggerated the problems.

People, this is real life we're talking about. I have met scores of people who are being pushed closer to the edge of suicide by a "church" that is heaping obligations upon depression sufferers, in the form of "good advice".

To quote Leonard Ravenhill, "That world outside isn't waiting for a new definition of Christianity, it's waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity."


_________________
Aaron Ireland

 2007/7/26 7:35Profile









 Re:

That's a beautiful post Aaron and I don't think my post way up top contradicts with yours at all.

Life stories aside here, suffering either makes us bitter or better. When I came to Christ upon hearing the Gospel, I was down to 98 lb.s from years of abuse, etc., since two months old ... but one of my first prayers to Jesus was "whatever" it takes, make me like You ... no matter how painful, no matter what the cost. What was I asking for ? The complete opposite of what a Psychologist would have recommended from all that I had been through just to that point in my life.

Reckon that's all we both are trying to get out here. "Self" focus never helps but taking the "time" with folks, as I said above and you are now saying is Scriptural. Amen.
Weep with those who weep, etc..
There's a time to mourn and a time to rejoice and so on. Love is compassion and Love is what this self-focused church is lacking, even for their own. We only say that the hyper-faith/prosperity gospel folks are the Church of Laodicea --- talk about motes & beams, but [b]we're[/b] the ones who need to "anoint our eyes with eye salve, that we mayest see." Or at the least, we are definitely the Church of Ephesus.
Rev 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
Rev 2:3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.
Rev 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy First Love.

I found another good article on all of what we're both attempting to say here in our own words and if I can locate it somewhere on the net, I'll try to post it here.

Bless you Aaron.
We 'all' need a dose of eye salve everyday to get out the pollutants that the world, the flesh and the devil fills the 'air' with and to get our own motes & beams out easier. I pray for that "oil" for myself and I appreciate those who Pray one for another. Thank you brother - GOD Bless you!!!

 2007/7/26 18:16
CJaKfOrEsT
Member



Joined: 2004/3/31
Posts: 901
Melbourne, Australia

 Re:

Quote:

GrannieAnnie wrote:
Life stories aside here, [b]suffering either makes us bitter or better[/b]. When I came to Christ upon hearing the Gospel, I was down to 98 lb.s from years of abuse, etc., since two months old ... but one of my first prayers to Jesus was "whatever" it takes, make me like You ... no matter how painful, no matter what the cost. What was I asking for ? [b]The complete opposite of what a Psychologist would have recommended from all that I had been through just to that point in my life[/b].
(emphais added)



Annie,

Firstly, I'd like to say that I greatly appreciate your posts here. I would hate you to think that I'm going after you for "heresy". I guess I am reading in your posts words with the subtle taint that is common in most Christians, a paranoia of all things Psychological. This taint is keeping those who are hurting from the help that is available.

Allow me to illustrate, I asked someone once what it means to "be in the world but not of it", and he replied, "Be Christlike". I went on to ask, "But what it is to 'be Christlike'?", and he replied, with a smirk, "Well that's why you've got to read the Bible." To that I said, "Okay, but what is it that you read in the Bible, about it?" It is all well and good to know that the answer is in the Bible, but we need to know [b]what the answer is, in the Bible[/b].

None of the Psychologists that I know would have recommended contrary to what you did. In fact they would have applauded. The thing is, they would have taken you by the hand, and been "God with skin on" for you, until you could "see Him" for yourself, and then continued to love you as a peer. It's similar to James rebuking those who exhort people to be blessed and well fed, without offering them material assistance. In essence, they would lead you from "bitterness" to "better-ness", which is meant to be the role of the Church.

Most Psychologists that I know hope to be able to work their way out of a job. That is the difference between the "hireling" and the "son", as I described earlier.

I'm glad that you have received the healing that you have. Sadly many need someone to hold their hands through it. I pray that we can all be those "hands" for them.


_________________
Aaron Ireland

 2007/7/27 22:14Profile









 Re:

Oh Aaron, there's nothing you could say that would break that bond that only Christ could have formed.

I should clear up a lot then of what I've posted here. On page 1 "I think" I posted a psychiatrist's site and I have read most of his books.

You see, I studied psychology since I was 12. Ha.
My older brother brought home a psch book and it just grabbed me, because I wanted to understand why folks do what they do to each other and to themselves.

I was supposed to go on to be the Psychologist in our family. I'm the only one who isn't a Dr. or a Scientist. Hoy, such shame, huh ?

Ha, I had a subscription to Psychology Today when I was 16 and a Library you wouldn't believe by time I was 18, because I was working as a Respiratory Therapist by then and spent my paychecks on Psych books ..... but after I got saved, the Lord brought this psychiatrist's books into my life that I posted on page 1 and I saw the "Choice Theory" and how it lined up with the Bible.

I am friends with some Christian counselors and two psychologists who are strickly Bible practitioners, so I hope you see that I'm not where you may have thought... maybe.

I said what I said on this last page so that WE would start doing what WE are supposed to be doing for each other.

When you call some Christians with problems, they start talking about themselves and that's all, so you hang up and just go to GOD with your pain. This shouldn't be brother and we should care for anyone who is hurting. I guess I was trying to get us to where that secular psychiatrist I saw on T.V. who was dumping on his own profession was .... he said, that if a person had a good friend who would just "listen", that the folks would get more help that way then from his own profession.
He said, when speaking in front of hundreds of other psychiatrists, "that if anything, we've done more harm than good."

I go to a Forum for all sorts of sick people.
Most have physical diseases and some emotional ... and I find I work best with those who have anxiety or depression .... and all of them have one or the other, most from their physical diseases, but some not.

Just my own experience I posted and working with depressed folks from the "Reality/Choice Therapy" appoach that I posted earlier.

Bless you and I'm glad that we have been praying for each other.

I sure appreciate that and am happy to say that "HE ALONE" took me by the hand. :-D

The Great Physician is a Miracle Worker. Bless GOD!

Thank you Aaron.

 2007/7/27 23:00





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