Life can knock you down again and again until you feel too hopeless to get back up. If that's you, you're not alone. Millions of people battle despair, depression, and hopelessness. But you don't have to stay in that pit.
In Psalm 40:1-4, David, clearly depressed, encouraged himself by remembering what God had done for him in the past.
David led such a traumatic life that he may have dealt with depression many times. He wrote:
"I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him.
Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord."
David was talking about what happened in the past. By the end of Psalm 40, his current situation still hasn’t been resolved, but he’s remembering what God has done for him before and believing that God will do it again.
Let me just talk to you for a minute. I've experienced this more than a few times in my own life because I've had chronic pain for several years. As I've shared in other videos, the pit of despair isn’t a physical place—it’s a place in your brain.
Escape the pit of despair by renewing your mind with God’s Word. A thought problem requires a thought solution.
Romans 12:2 urges us:
"Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think."
Other translations say that God transforms us by renewing our minds.
Psalm 40:2 promises that God will give you a firm place to stand—a rock.
Replace hopelessness and fear with God’s truths and promises. They are eternal, unchanging—the rock upon which we stand, our firm foundation. They’re more real than your fleeting circumstances.
Often, once we’ve dealt with despair psychologically, we can walk out of the physical circumstances that caused it. But first, we must defeat the despair in our minds and hearts—and God will do that as you stand on His truth and His promises.