My sister-in-law and I were visiting this weekend and she shared that a close friend of my brother’s had expressed to her that he was very depressed. If you have read my testimony, you know my brother committed suicide in July 2022. His dear friend is now experiencing, or at least, now sharing that he is so depressed he doesn’t want to get out of bed and is having a hard time engaging with his family. My sister and I just looked at each other thinking, how do we help. And it’s crazy. You’d think that we could help because of our experience, right? We’re supposed to learn from our experience. But, this is a situation that only the self can control and change. I believe most books I’ve read since my brother’s death, and most people I have talked with will tell you the same thing. There are many ideas out there, many therapies available, many interventions, but until the person experiencing the actual pain of depression, or anxiety, or hopelessness recognizes the demise and wants to make a change, the loved ones are left with bound hands. The next couple hours, she and I would bounce ideas off each other. All the while knowing we can’t will him to a better state of mind. So what is the solution if friends and family can’t talk someone into getting help? I’m going to use a quote I used in a previous post because I believe it’s were it all begins.
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” Fyodor Dostoevsky—“The Brothers Karamazov.”
The world likes to tell us what to live for. We are told things like success, popularity, beauty, materialism are things that are worthy to live for. Yet, there are many a millionaire who did not find happiness in their millions. There are many a beauty who were not content in their skin. These values of the world that we are bombarded with daily are actually leading us toward unhappiness and feelings of inadequacy. I ask you to consider a more spiritual purpose to living.
Today, Israel is at war. There are thousands of people dying on both sides of this war. When you turn on the news you see large structures, buildings, hospitals being destroyed. You see people wandering the streets of rubble with lives shattered and no home to return to. You turn on the news and immediately we are seeing how in a spit second, this world we live in can be cruelly and completely obliterated. We could be driving to work one minute and the next have no downtown to drive to. Have no office complex, no grocery store, no bank, no home. What next? What about all those so called values that this world was telling us to achieve and live for? They can be gone and worthless in the blink of the eye. I ask you, again, to consider a more spiritual purpose to living.
For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our everlasting home in heaven. Hebrews 13:14. “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14: 1-3.
I ask you to contemplate the reality that we are eternal souls living in earthly bodies. What is the purpose of our eternal souls in this life? The answer to this is the meat of this post. The purpose of our earthly lives is to find our Heavenly Father, bask in the comfort of his promise to love and guide us, and walk in a life that is pleasing to him. Knowing in full confidence that what is pleasing to Him, is best for us. Things like Faith (#3), Humility (#8), Love (#9), Service (#12), and Hope (#2) are values that are worthy of our energy and focus. Nothing else should matter to our eternal souls. Long after this earthly body passes away, our soul will live. If we can begin to focus on our eternal life, instead of chasing after the immediate gratification of the here and now, we can begin to heal our sense of hopelessness and begin to see the light of an eternity with our creator and savior. The Great I Am. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8.
Did you know? The Bible consists of original texts written by 39 different authors speaking 3 different languages. It was written over 1500 years and across 3 different continents. Yet there is consistent unifying features of prophecy, given and fulfilled. Undisputed. It is undisputed that Jesus was born in Bethlehem as prophesied 400-500 years before his birth. It is undisputed that Jesus walked this earth. It is undisputed that he was crucified, also prophesied hundreds of years prior. And that’s just two of the hundreds of prophecies told and fulfilled, established as facts in the modern world, documented in the cannon of books in the Bible.