A Daily Devotional – Depression – The Eternal Word (40)

A Daily Devotional – Depression – The Eternal Word

Comment: Better is a crust of dry bread eaten in peace and quiet, then a house full of food and feasting and strife. If you are one who reads Proverbs daily, you know well that I have added a few words to verse one of chapter 17. Then if we back up to Proverbs 15:17 we read a similar statement by Solomon – Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted calf with hatred. All of us have experienced times in life that are disruptive. Now hear me on this, these times of strife and hatred never occur when love for one another is actively present

Devotional: Gatherings are common to all of us, we need to be with people. Yet, in many of these gatherings we find another Proverb of Solomon actively developing that reads like this: “anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes the heart glad”. The NIV version: “An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up” Proverbs 12:25.

If we think about this serious subject that has destroyed many by causing them to retreat from public gatherings and activities, who become anxious and weighed down with depression, we must ask a question like. “The fault is why?” Is it the gathering, the noise of the gathering or the hatred displayed by the people in the gathering? While in part, gatherings play a role, so do we.

Notice if you will again Proverbs 17:1, it is better for the soul to sit at home alone with a routine meal than to go to a gathering where the meal is surrounded by strife. The absence of sacrificial love for one another will always end in strife. Proverbs 15:17, offers a solution to gatherings where food is a part of the gathering. Whether vegetables or meat “love for one another must be PRESENT”.

There is a professional concern for people who are fifty years of age or older regarding dementia, a precursor for Alzheimer’s. Food, that is; eating the right foods helps restore the activity of the brain. I believe this is true, but it is not all in the food we eat or do not eat. Many people today suffer with depression which is also a marker for the above conditions of the brain. 

When hope in living is cut off (depression) our heart is deprived of proper nutrition, and the brain, the control room of our thinking becomes physically and mentally sick. The desire of our heart is to fully live and this we cannot do if we do not have love for one another. We can read this also in Proverbs 13:12. This is a concern for most of us, why? Proverbs 13:14 – The teachings of the wise is a fountain of ‘life’, turning a man from the snares (be it physical or mental) of ‘death’.