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God's peace can help us live above anxieties as we learn to trust in Him!

The Lord Your Healer: 

Discover Him and Find His Healing Touch by Paul J. Bucknell

Newest! The Lord Your Healer

Discover Him and Find His Healing Touch

First step of discipleship
revive devotions
Advanced Discipleship

The Bible Teaching Commentary on Genesis: The Book of Foundations

Commentaries that specialize on training the teacher!

Overcoming Anxiety: Finding Peace, Discovering God

 

Discouragement & Depression: Its Causes and Solutions
Reflections upon Haggai

Haggai: Building the Temple of God

Paul J. Bucknell

Depression | Two Cycles| Cycle #1 Guilt | #1 Obedience | Cycle #2 | Wisdom | Compassion | Promises


Can God's people fall into despair and depression? Sure can. Are there solutions for depression?

Now let's learn from the many insights that we can gain on how God deals with discouraged and depressed people.

Observing the Cycles of Despair

As we go through the Book of Haggai, we will see God treating the Israelite people differently in different situations. This is no special surprise, but it does give us some organization to the many observations below.

Overall, we find two different circumstances and their responses to God. Importantly, we find different patterns on how God deals with these discouraged Israelites. The way they respond to God has a lot to do with their dispositions. We even see a strong cyclic pattern.

Haggai's Cycles of Despair: Discouraged and Depressed.

These cycles demonstrate how our responses to God so strongly influence our inner lives. The strong message that has been circulating in the Western world for these last decades has convinced many that spiritual things are immaterial to our daily lives.

People are taught to go through these cycles without realizing the connection they have with their relationship with God. Indeed, the number of clinical cases of depression are a testimony of a world without God's gracious help. May we seek God's intervening hand in our daily lives.

These two cycles show how significant God a place God plays in our lives, whether we like it or not. With each cycle there is a low and a high. We start looking at each cycle at its low. It is at one's most desperate times God intervenes and brings extra grace to break the otherwise monotonous low.

His grace can and does lead to a high where the path of unresolved disobedience is broken and a tremendous infusion of excitement, motivation and power arrive enabling them to do what was put off for months if not years.

The two cycles and outline

Cycle #1: Caring for the Discouraged (Haggai 1:1-15)

A) The Low Cycle: Living with Guilt (Haggai 1:1-11)

B) The High Cycle: Living in Obedience (Haggai 1:12-15)

Cycle #2 Caring for the Depressed (Haggai 2:1-23)

1) God's wisdom

2) God's compassion

3) God's promises

Next => We discuss the first cycle on the next page

Cycle #1: Caring for the Discouraged (Haggai 1:1-15)

 

Biblical Training Digital LibraryOur Old Testament Library includes many more Bible studies along with books, powerpoint slides and hundreds of articles making the scriptures come alive.

 


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Scriptures typically quoted from the New American Standard Bible unless noted: (C) Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1988

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