Overcoming the mountain of "the Black dog"

Winston Churchill describes the depression that he experienced calling it by the name “the black dog”. Charles Swindoll writing about this Psalm referred to the experience David had as what his father had called being “under the pile”. Some refer to it as interpreting life “seeing blue”. Sometimes when we experience long-term stress it gets to us.

At a time like this, it is no time to study the book of Job, look at dark things or even difficult questions. Sometimes we still have to bugger on. Churchill could not postpone WW2. Abraham Lincoln suffering depression had to carry on to save the union. And here in Psalm 13, David had to find hope to carry-on in a 12-year struggle of survival against the threat of death by Saul. 

Long-term stress can take its toll.

How do we get through it?

Psalm 13 just being six verses (see picture) can be very helpful. Psalm 13 we described as a lament Psalm. This type of psalm fits well with the picture of a mountain. At the base of a mountain is the emotional outcry of feelings we find hard to express. It is good that we have someone we can actually share these things with. Because I see people in the Bible expressing them to God is a great encouragement. God is someone we can always share our feelings. We cannot always act our feelings where they would be harmful to us or to others, we can share them with God. Look carefully at the "how longs" in verses one and two. 

Ps. 13 Overcoming "the Black Dog"

From our perspective, we may feel these things but eventually, we're going to have to confront them. Does God forget us? Does he hide his face from us? Note verse two painful thinking comes from within ourselves. Our state of mind is not how God sees things. 12 years David has been harassed by King Saul to the point of death. That is a very long time but soon David will not only survive but triumph over his enemies. Hard to see that in the struggle.

We discover in these lament Psalms a point where the difficult feelings turn to prayer and off for a rational prayer request. We saw that in verse three. David wants light=life to be restored in his life. He needs God to heal him. (Psalm 23:3)

In verse five we see the next necessary step in the healing process as we focus on God's faithful love and deliverance (for David from Saul) for us the mountain of "the black dog." Confronting the lies of depression always begins with some truth that contradicts the depression. Hope begins to grow. 

As their depression lifts, we see the mountain of the black dog thrown into the sea. If you look at Mark 11:22 the mountain Jesus was referring to was the Mount of Olives. Now you can stand in front of that mountain with the loudspeaker and you will never see the mountain thrown into the sea. We know the mountain will be there until Jesus comes back. The mountain that Jesus is referring to is the significant obstacle that we face that causes us to cry out with strong emotional language. 

Finally, as we look back we see how Lord was with us. Note David saw God’s care as being very generous. Whatever the mountain we face it is good to know that God wants us to experience life being blessed. Looking back how did we get through it? We see the Lord as being there.

We all suffer loss and face disappointments, God wants to hear us. We start at the base of the mountain as we begin our climb to prayer, faith through the darkness to life. Keep walking

Urgent prayer and other matters if we face a violent attack

I had been reading and meditating on Psalm 59. In verses 4 and 5, David is asking God to rouse Himself and wake up to move with urgency to protect David from assassins. King Saul had seen some bad hombre, agents, to kill David. The setting for this prayer is given to us in 1 Samuel 19:11-18. David's bluntness in talking to God intrigues me.  This is an epigrammatic psalm which means it is concise, clever and amusing style. The Psalm is a planned composition from beginning to end. His purpose is to teach people that God does hear and will punish wicked people who live and do evil as if God doesn't exist. Sounds like news in the daily paper, doesn't it.  In verse 7 these assassins respond, "Who hears?" David's overacting with awake and arouse are part of the epigram in which God laughs, vs. 8
Our experience we may ask God to wake up, we may feel He delays action but we can rely on the truth in Ps. 121:2-7
2 My help comes from the Lord,

Whether off the back of a bench
Using a tree can be used for starters.

Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel 
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper; 
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
David's plan that night was to be lowered from a window in the darkness and use his stealth and speed to run away to safety. He was keenly aware of the danger and made a military analysis of his foes. Ps. 59, 1-3; 4a, 6,7, 121, 14, 15.
In light of David's ability to be aware of the danger and know when to run or when to confront evil got me thinking about our strategies to deal with those who may want to harm us. Bear Grylls advise on survival is to make the best plan you can and give it 100% and continue to work at it. We may lack his skill set and training but each of us could be aware of our strengths and weaknesses and plan something that gives us the best chance to survive.

Or a harder push-up off the seat
These are good ways to increase
body strength to assist your self-defense 

(In your own security plan think it through. My ideas may get you thinking, but there are certainly better ones out there. so think it through.) Note David’s plans for security involved escapes, running, fleeing, guile, retreating to well defensible positions, hiding, and at times confronting his opposition. We too should wisely see our options. 

See danger ahead move away from it. Evil out to harm you seek shelter and refuge. Abuse comes to mind. 

In your home secure windows and obtain strong doors and locks. Have your phone ready and you know danger lurks call as soon as you can 911. Take self-defense class and do 20 pushups. Always be aware of parking lots or walking. Walk with a friend. 

Staying in abuse or visiting dangerous places is not wise. 

Whatever tools you may use to survive a violent attack know how to use them legally and with skill. David used all these strategies and he still had to pray for God’s safety. We cannot presume and ignore danger singles. But we know God is key to our protection. Prayer is one of the weapons confronting evil, but if the bad guy is coming in then we have to flight or fight. If we choose non-violence then we have to be prepared for the consequences. Giving up may help us survive. Or it could be the worse thing to do. 

 Awareness, preparation, and moving away from danger the best options. Danger usually comes in ambush.

David’s praying is not easily deduced from 1 Samuel  19:11-18. Prayers in danger are usually short and to the point. Keep walking

May be a recumbapnt Is for you

 Just a simple noate my  recumbent bike has really been a blessing this week. I have done different types of biking and each one gets started pumping and help circulate the blood. With Barb doing physical therapy some of the moves I need Needed to do to help my joint health it was a good review. Barb is making progress and I am doing the same with my spin class and intermediate workouts. The rip come and bike is so useful to bike a couple miles and vary the resistance pushing a blood pressure breathing harder and making some serious distance. Doing 20 minutes 30 minutes is like walking the dog at night and really helps blood sugar. I do some stretching and strength training and I’m sleeping like a baby. My compression socks also bring Greg comfort and care to my feet. Wearing shoes is a good thing. Getting out with my family and social outings with my bike or scooter is lotta fun If you were having a hard enough time moving around invest in a $200 recumbentIt will be well worth the cost. Have fun

In the same way we battle health concerns that matter we can look at our brain heath too.

Dear reader, can you identify whatever health problems you have? 

Let's began with things that matter. Do you have problems with your heart, your arteries? Do you have problems with high blood pressure? Think through if your brain affected by your artery health?

Do you have problems with cancer? Is part of your problems with cancer-related to cancer is you're trying to prevent the disease? If you are battling cancer does that battle interfere with your ability to combat infections and disease?

Do you have problems with blood sugar, diabetes?

These kind of problems are the problems that normally threaten our life. I think we all agree that there big problems. Sometimes the fear of them causes us not to seek out help until they become more problematic and even life-threatening.

Whether or not you made these problems public or not it's totally up to you. I think it's a good idea to tell people who can help you deal with these things, but not everybody indeed needs to know. If you choose to publicly endorse some type of action that may help others, how you do this has many options and it's totally up to you.

Cardiovascular, diabetes and cancer has always been at my focus in walking with the fat-man. As the years of past, I've added dementia to my list.

My first goal was to prevent an early heart attack that many of my family has experienced. One of my favorite uncles passed away in his 50s with an early heart attack. My uncle Bruce was one of my favorite relatives. My brother died in his late 50s. My father was 68 and my mother was 71. I am now 67. On one level I enjoy each day of life, but on another level, I would like to outlive my parents. Years ago I made a magical number of 83. I thought about this back in my 30s when I came up with that formula. I thought that would be a good long life. I still think so. I may not get there but it is a good goal.
In my thirties whatever I thought about being older getting there is a lot different.

As we get older we begin to understand the aging process in personal ways.

There is another area of health that aging brings its problems. Our brain health can be affected by aging. Dementia is something that we should become more informed about. There are things that we can do that may help us for several years. 

What about depression, anxiety? What about the possibility of withdrawing and becoming isolated? Is our world becoming dark? Are we experiencing the"black dog"? 

Do we have negative friends and relatives that we need to set boundaries?

Losing mobility or the ability to be independent changes our relationships as well. Open your intervention to capable doctors and therapists to help you change living with depression. Thankfully most people never experience clinical depression, but at least 255 of us do.

One of the things that we can do when we get older is to understand what is important to us. We often get an ability not to care what other people may think about it. Use that for your favor if you need to reach out to develop your medical team to include the brain. 

There is no need for guilt or shame here the brain is a complicated and wonderful organ. As we get older probably have so many things wrong with it much of which we probably have discovered yet. But there is a great hope for depression and anxiety. We can live on the upbeat in our senior years. Today is a beautiful day, blue skies a nice summer temperature. Good time for a summer drink, an outdoor grill, taking in a deep breath count every good thing we may have going. Thank you, Lord, thank you, friend, that you Rover, etc. Thanks for this day. Keep walking.

As always follow your doctors advise. 

peddling along

A summer day in the '70s, I'll take it. I went for a very long bike ride. On my Liberty bike peddling is not hard at all. I kept my bike at the lower speeds cruising along at 7 miles an hour. Going up inclines I put the power up a notch or two. I wore my sun shirt and it was perfect. Along the way, an elementary girl was selling lemonade like in the old days. I took a second look and said to self, "I got to stop." The drink was cool and I threw it in the basket when I was done.
I am still in the game with my app to lose weight. The one thing I noticed is how easy it is to regain the weight. Vacation I stayed pretty close to the target and I got a lot out of swimming every day. I still enjoy swimming in the Gulf. I think I was quite a sight with my hat, sun shirt. In the water it all worked, no burn, no tan swimming was easy.
Listening to The Grey Mask written by Patricia Wentworth 1928 of a retired school teacher now investigator mostly of thefts. The reader with a British accent sets the

mood for the mystery. Always nice to go back in time without the writer rewriting history to make it fit today's trends and sensibilities. The time period goes back to when my parents were born. My paternal grandparents were in their 20's. My maternal grandparents were a little older. My grandfather Criss would have been 43 and Grandma Criss would have been 30. Before the depression and after WWI. Just imagine if they had the live photos you can take today. To see them in animation. The book was popular in its day and like many novels, we read a different place, people of money different from our own. I enjoy audible books.
My Florida book this year was a Jack Reacher novel. Nothing like a hero who can do anything he wants to defend or get justice and keep moving.
Finished my month with Dr. Roy Zuck devotions on Ecclesiastes. In Devotions for Kindred Spirits the month of May, Dr. Zuck challenge me to rethink the book in a more positive message. A life lived with God pondering life's difficulties or a life without God leading to its own consequences.
Summer cool to experience. Keep walking

Learning from tragety and a funeral

I was reading a counselor who was instructed what to say and what not to say at a funeral of a tragedy. I created a note highlighted below in blue as a response. I think it is easy to say the wrong thing at a funeral. We may know the survivor or maybe we know the deceased. We may or may not know both of them. 

With each of us, there is our first funeral. I know many people who never going to funerals. My first funeral was at age 16 when a childhood friend had died with two others in a car accident. More and more people are getting cremated. More and more people are not connected to a church. Many people do not even like to talk about death. Many children are not encouraged to go funerals. Family seeking to protect the children also keep children ignorant about death and loss. For many adolescents,  funerals are first attended at the death of the schoolmate killed in an accident or suicide. With little experience and knowledge, they have to encounter death so tragic we are all wresting for understanding.

Nobody is encouraged to read the Scriptures and learn from the Lord about these things and there we are grasping at the wind.

The counselor went on to encourage the reader not to say anything to offend, but in essence really not saying anything except I am here for you. Which in itself is a good thing to say at a funeral especially if it's true?

This is what the counselor said 

What NOT to say:

• “I know how you feel.”
• “I understand.”
• “I’ve been there.”
• “This reminds me of when I… (your personal experience of tragedy).”
• “I’m sure God has a reason for this.”
• “I know that (the person who is gone, hurt, etc.) is in a better place now.”

I suppose each line there can be anger - do you!

Here is my response in part not to be said at a funeral. Loss and death are big issues. I quote ancient wisdom that should force us to battle this in our brains. Each funeral should teach us something and give us wisdom regarding our own death. Only in God can our spirits rise to heaven upon death. We need God.

(I get it, to listen. But to not say anything may not be of the Spirit either. We are to grieve with those who grieve. We too may be experiencing the pain of the loss. There are words of comfort. We live in an age that encourages ignorance and non-offense. We refuse to learn at funerals. 

Consider Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

2 It is better to go to a funeral than a feast. For death is the destiny of every person, and the living should take this to heart. 3 Sorrow is better than laughter because sober reflection is good for the heart. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of merrymaking.

Also Ecclesiastes 8:17 “NET© then I discerned all that God has done: No one really comprehends what happens on earth. Despite all human efforts to discover it, no one can ever grasp it. Even if a wise person claimed that he understood, he would not really comprehend it.” 

We are to wrestle with these things not avoid them. The Bible reveals more and our loss should drive us to seek God’s wisdom.

Instead, we cremate and are quickly encouraged to move on. Many now avoid the experience altogether. Ignorant, not learning, we ignore our own death and refuse to come to the Lord. Reeves) Keep walking

Like most crime novels we vicariously enjoy the world of the rich and famous. Life is full of puzzles to solve or not

Sitting at pool site in Naples,
Florida. Looking out waterway
to the Gulf

It is said, you can't take it with you. This was my first trip to Naples, Florida other than a prior pass-throughs on the way to the everglades. Stayed at a Charter club in Old Naples. Affluence everywhere. Water, tropical and money. We all seem to love it.
Looking at the homes of the rich and famous tell interesting stories. Many of the homes are not even lived in but for a few weeks a year. One home bought a neighbor's home, for around 20 million, tore it down and uses the land for a dog park for their dog.
Tom Selleck built a home designed like the one used in Magnum PI. He never lived there. Politicians from both parties live there and the who's who from business, writers, famous from all walks of life.
Where I was located is near the city's dock where boats are entered. Took a sunset cruise and had the view these homes have every night. That day had rained all day but the evening the skies cleared had we a had a great sunset.
Vicariously I think we all enjoyed being in the world of the rich. Our novels, movies,

A floating mushroom

media place our imaginations with the rich and powerful. No matter your political view we strive to be on top. One of the themes of the wisdom books of the Bible deals with our relationship with money and power. It can be a blessing or a curse. Wealth can benefit many or oppress many. Reading the ancient writings helps us gain insight
"For he will take nothing with him when he dies; his wealth will not follow him down into the grave." Ps. 49:17
Along with the homes of Port Royal, the home valued at millions will be torn down upon the sale or death of the owner only to be rebuilt for bigger homes or even a dog park for an owner's dog to do his business. One owner needed 8 more inches in a room for a statue he bought traveling to Italy. He tore down the mansion and rebuilt the same mansion only the room was given 8 more inches. I have many friends travel to Italy and take in the sights (we all like to be affluent) and wish they could buy art, products but don't have enough room to fly it back. Unless they are a hoarder there is no room in the house. 
The problems of wealth and poverty will always be with us and it is good to read, study, meditate, apply what we learn in Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon throughout our life. Not that we figure it all out, which is impossible, but that we grow in skills with our relationship to God and others.

Out on the Gulf- Can you see the curve of the earth? God's paintbrush

Consider the blessings of wealth enjoyed or not.
Ecc 5:19 To every man whom God has given wealth, and possessions, he has also given him the ability to eat from them, to receive his reward and to find enjoyment in his toil; these things are the gift of God.
Ecc 6:2 God gives a man riches, property, and wealth so that he lacks nothing that his heart desires, yet God does not enable him to enjoy the fruit of his labor –instead, someone else enjoys it! This is fruitless and a grave misfortune.
In my devotions the other night I came across curious verses, 
"Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?" ESV "It is best to take hold of one warning without letting go of the other warning; for the one who fears God will follow both warnings." NET 
I know we are all sinners and we all sin, but thankfully we did not sin to our deaths. We learned from our past sins to a wiser life. I also know we can never reach perfection in this life, nor solve every life riddle we encounter. No, it is good to enjoy a sunset, enjoy the blessings God gives and learn from our trials to trust the One who can take us to heaven. Politics, power, money, poverty are always in conflict. How are we living, loving, sharing and caring? We have enough to deal with ourselves. Keep walking