Sadness beyond Belief

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." 1 Kings 19.3-4

Do you ever feel like Elijah, you just wish you could run away and die, that nothing seems good anymore. You cannot find fun in life, you feel hopeless. Things in front of you need to be done, you just cannot find energy. When Jesus was “very sorrowful, even to death” in Gethsemane he was sustained by “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2).

Cast all your anxiety on God because He cares for you. 1Peter 5:7

Scripture is filled with stories of people who are sad -- Jesus for one -- He wept over the death of his friend and He wept for His friends who had lost a brother. It’s not new. Its symptoms dot the pages of the Biblical record. Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, Paul. Listen to the Psalmist. “My strength drains away like water, all my bones are loose. My heart has turned to wax and melts within me. My mouth is dry as a clay pot, my tongue sticks to my jaw.”

The first thing to be said is that when we are in a saddened mood we are in good company. We all have someone in our life who is going thru something difficult and we want to be good Christians and helpful. The thing is we do not want to hear about all their problems, so instead we just find excuses so we don’t have to be around them. Let us think about ways to help a hurting friend. What often happens is that we try to talk them out of their sad feelings, even when sadness makes sense. We change the subject or we give ready advice. We try to fix them. If we are especially impatient, we just remind them that God knows everything and will take care of it all. If you are a child of God, stop that, you might be the last chance for that person to receive God into their own life, you do not want their death to be on your hands. Yes, I said death, because if they do not know God their life is doomed to a final death in Hell.

I found it so interesting today when I was studying and ran across an article from the New York Times. The article tells us “religious people are less stressed and happier than nonbelievers. And research is beginning to explain why.” Shocked yet, I wasn’t to a certain degree. I too have been sad over circumstances in my life that I have no control over, however; the outlook is what keeps me going. See as a child of God you find comfort and peace, understanding and the knowledge that there will be a day of no more suffering, sadness, sorrow and pain. The day of death for us as Christians is in actuality a new life. Back to the Time magazine article, studies show that the more a believer incorporates religion into daily living— attending services, reading Scripture and other meaningful literature, praying, singing — the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall satisfaction with life as meaningful. Attending services has a particularly strong correlation to life satisfaction, as it grants faith in God and his purpose for us.

Each day of life, we put our hearts into Gods hands or we choose to leave them to the world. My friends, God is the way to go, the world has only an ending of hell awaiting you. In God’s hands, you are promised a place of peace, and happiness and no more sadness, a place with mansions. I pray for you this day asking God, that each of you reach out and ask God to come into your lives and to replace that sadness with happiness and joy that He so wants you to have. If you are thinking it’s not that easy, you are so wrong, God is there for the asking, waiting patiently on your cry to Him. Please do not wait until it is too late, you are not promised tomorrow.


God bless you my friends!