how do you raise a crushed spirit?

Prov 17:22 (ESV)
A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Yesterday, later in the day, I was feeling flat and mildly depressed.  Not clinically depressed, just the kind of normal depression of spirit that is part of life.  I had been speaking to a few friends who have troubles in their lives and something of their burdens weighed on me too.  One, in particular, has a hard life at the moment and is crushed by it. The Bible speaks truly when it says,

Prov 18:14 (ESV)
A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?

Many in life are crushed by circumstances.  Indeed, reflecting, even just for a few moments, on the accumulative suffering of the world is crushing.  Secularism, as a way of thinking about life, has little to offer the crushed.  Secularism is for the healthy, those full of life and vitality (the beautiful people of the adverts) but has few words that will lift the downcast.  It’s basic answer is ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die’.  And so many rather desperately pursue pleasure as the panacea for personal emotional pain.  The ‘arts’ may offer some insight and consolation but they cannot offer hope.  Of course sometimes ‘time out’ in some form of relaxation is just what is needed if possible.  A holiday, a day walking, a picnic may well provide the change that will revive us.  But this tends to be true for lesser problems of life, not when the spirit is truly crushed.

What if you are living in a difficult situation from which there is no immediate escape?  What if you are housebound?  What if you are living in real poverty?  What if you are in an unhappy marriage?  When you lie down to sleep and your spirit is flat and ‘cast down’ within you making sleep unlikely, how do you raise your mood?  How do you find joy in desolation?

You may try to think of good times in the past.  But that is unlikely to help greatly for it only underlines the misery of the present.  You may take your mind away to a pleasant and tranquil place.  You may envisage yourself sitting on a sandy beach in the sunshine or such like.  This will help a little but the problem is the sandy beach has no ability to address your present circumstances.

I have found that the answer is that which the Bible regularly encourages us to do – to turn our minds to communion with our God.  This may sound like a rather advanced discipline in the Christian life, but it’s not.  It is really rather simple and open to every child of God.  Indeed it is what comes naturally to us as Christians.  It is simply to talk to God reflecting on who he is and his great power and love towards us.

Sometimes if I am really bruised and jaded and can’t think straight I may be able only to say ‘Father… Father… Father… How thankful I am that you are my Father’.  The conscious realisation that God is my ‘Father’ is reassuring, reorienting and restful.  It raises my spirit.  God is in control and God is my heavenly Father.  At other times I sing to myself, inside my head.  A favourite hymn can raise the spirit.  When I feel under attack I often sing a song drawn from the words of the Psalms, ‘Glory to the name of the Lord most High.  The name of the Lord is, a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are safe’. It is a spirited tune which I sing better in my head than with my voice (in my head I have perfect pitch).  The tune and the words can considerably lift my spirits.

The point is we concentrate on some aspect of the faith that counters our mood and the problems that have caused our mood.  If plagued by accusations of personal failure I may say internally over and over again ‘Thank you Father that the blood of Jesus, Your Son, cleanses me from all sin’.  I may let my mind draw out the word ‘all’ in a restful, wondering and therapeutic way.  For the gospel is therapeutic.  If I feel crushed by circumstances I may say, ‘Thank you Lord that you are powerful and strong and I can do all things through you’.

Sometimes the communion may just be a word that I allow to linger in my mind.  I may not need to think beyond the word for all its rich implications are already embedded in my mind from former days.  ‘Grace’ is such a word.  Sometimes I may lie and reflect on great gospel realities in a little more detail.  I find it helpful to say, ‘Thank you Lord Jesus that you are in heaven today.  That you are past personal suffering and you are reigning.  You are glorious and majestic.  You are employing all your infinite resources to strengthen and sustain me… and one day soon you will return for me and bring me into your everlasting kingdom of joy and peace.’  Our spirits may not be raised greatly by thinking of the past but they are when we think about a hope-filled future.

We all need to find our own way in communing with God.  There are no heavy rules.  But I would say – do it.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  Enjoy him.  Delight in him and he will satisfy your heart.  Let your thoughts dwell on him and he will raise and strengthen your spirit.

Ps 34:18 (ESV)
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.