Coming Apart at the Seams?

It was not many years ago when I went to visit a woman in her home and found as I entered the house a woman in the middle of a meltdown. She was frantic with her weeping, as tears alone could not contain the depth of her mourning. She was mourning, but not the death of a loved one or other bad news. She was mourning a sense of desperate desolation, feeling total and utter abandonment.

Such depression is something that many battle and many others often feel right on the edge of. It is as though a good life were a fine line and any of us at any time could find ourselves slipping across into the abyss.

And it is an abyss, the experience that depression creates in us—a dark abyss of desertion and nothingness and fear, in which it seems that there is no one who knows and no one who cares. And for those who suffer there it is as though nothing matters and even that God has left us for dead.

Jesus says in John 8(:44) that the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And the worst lie of all that Satan whispers into human ears is this very one that weaves the blackened web of depression: the lie that says you are all alone, and no one cares, that God is busy and he has no time for you. You’re left all alone in circumstances too big for you, that though you hurt, there is no help for you at all.

And yet, for those who feel such abandonment or who feel close enough to fall in at any moment, there is a truth we have forgotten…

The last four thousand years of Christian and Jewish history have taught us. The stories of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Ruth, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Andrew, James, John, Peter, Paul… the testament of the book of Revelation. The testament of the book of Genesis! It is that our God sits in power over all things and all peoples. Never is he forgetful, tired or afraid. He reigns over all things, is greater than any human could ever know. He peers down at the circle of the earth, he stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in. He brings princes of the world to naught and makes the rulers of the earth like nothing.

To none can God be compared! None are is his equal! We stretch our eyes up to heaven and see a display of his power who brings out the host of stars and numbers them, calling each out by name. He measures the waters in the hollow of his hand and marks off the heavens with a span. He holds all the dust of the earth in a measure and the mountains and hills he has known from the beginning for he made them.

These are the exortations that Isaiah speaks to the people of Israel in their bondage, to those who feel lost from God and desperately alone and worried that God is not strong enough to save.

He asks them, Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did God consult for his enlightenment and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of understanding? Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; [The previous sections are from Isaiah 40].]

None should claim or fear that they are lost from the Lord, says the prophet. None should claim or fear that he is not great enough to comprehend their trouble or strong enough to come to their aid. For we know what has been revealed from the beginning of the earth: That the Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the earth and of all things from the start of time and forever. God does not get tired. The Lord does not forget, The Lord does not need a break. He does not get overcome, or grow tired, but it is he who gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless by the eternal power of his hand.

So Isaiah reminds them that even kids with all their energy grow tired. The eagle must stop and rest, even the stars will some day tire and the earth will wear out like an old shirt. Yet God who is over all and in all and through all remains forever and ever…

You see, although we might forget, we ought not to. We are never alone, never alone, ever alone. We are never lost, never forgotten, but we are within the sight and compassionate embrace of the Lord of Hosts. Always. And forever.

That woman who I met in her home… she was caught in a spiral of despair that was not only tearing her down, but was also blinding her to the almighty power of the Lord to save. But though she lost sight of him, the Lord’s attention never left her for a moment. Together she and I waited on the Lord and in time he renewed her strength, even in time gave her wings to soar like the eagle.

Truly our Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. We can never be lost to Him, and his love encompasses all people for all time in His glory.

Amen.