Saying Goodbye to Inertia

by Victoria Gaines
Published February 13, 2008

“Faith is the supreme effort of your life--throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.”
~ Oswald Chambers ~

When fear or heartache pays a visit, my natural inclination is to sink low. Left to languish, depression will have its way with me. Now, friend, depression isn’t the way to go, but I’ve been there. I’ve paid the toll. I almost ordered a tee-shirt with “Depression Diva” plastered across the front in bold, sparkly letters--but who needs to advertise, right? God understands our struggle and we don’t have to stay stuck. If you are stuck, I pray something here will minister to you.

Just turn on the news and you’re greeted instantly with life's setbacks and losses. For some of us, this reality has already camped too close to home. Divorce, financial hardship, crime, natural disasters, illness, freak accidents, mental illness, loneliness, death—it’s all around us. We need a faith that will pull us out from the wreckage of our lives and plant us back on firm ground. When lethargy infects our hearts, we need Jesus, not some feel-good sermonette. Through Him, it’s possible to turn from negativity and despair, and trust Christ for strength and renewal in the hard places. Life is full of hard places.

But if you’re like me, the first thing you wonder when a trial strikes is, "Why all these problems, Lord? What are you trying to do here?” Oswald Chambers reminds us: "God does not tell you what He is going to do--He reveals to you who He is."

If God will reveal who He is, then I want to know Him. Don’t you?

But living by faith means we never know where we’re being led day to day. Abraham lived this way. "And he went out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). I felt like that, too, the day my husband was diagnosed with a bulging aorta aneurysm, after just surviving scalp melanoma. Would this be the road to widowhood for me? I didn’t know. Abraham followed God because he trusted Him. During each rocky patch, I learn to trust Him more. We can rest in Him when we believe in our hearts that He is truly trustworthy. He is! And eventually we all have to “go out” into those unknown places--of the heart, and of the future. But He’s there.

God’s Sovereign ways don’t have to be crystal clear before we can accept His custom-designed journey for us. His design is to bring us closer to Jesus, whatever it takes. We don’t have to figure anything out, just quietly trust that His ways and purposes are good, and that He loves us.

They say to beat inertia, we keep our lives in gentle motion, trusting God to orchestrate His will through the daily-ness of our existence. All I know is, His grace is enough. I feel closest to Christ when I lay my burdens down.

Years ago I experienced grace when depression gripped me like a vise. Until then, I didn’t realize a chemical imbalance could nearly destroy a person’s life. There was stress, yes, and I was running on empty. Physically and mentally exhausted, my ability to cope dwindled to the point where I was bed-bound for days at a time. Thoughts of suicide came veiled as quick relief; fear raced through my veins. Folks kept telling me to snap out of it. I cried out to God – not with words, but tears. He prompted me to call our pastor. The very act of lifting that phone and punching the right numbers took every ounce of concentration I could muster. But it was a start.

Pastor M. was kind and empathetic, spoke tenderly of the Lord’s care for me, and scheduled time for us to meet weekly for prayer and counsel. Meanwhile, I began some medication that my doctor prescribed. I detested antidepressants because of the related stigma back then, but it seemed wise to help my brain function better as the Lord ministered to me through our kindhearted pastor.

That’s when I learned about Elijah. Despairing of life, the prophet Elijah lost his bearings as he ran until collapsing under the shade of a juniper tree. Not only had he run ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel (20-30 miles), but when Jezebel threatened his life, he fearfully fled another 60 miles to Beersheba, then another 15 miles until he reached the juniper tree in the wilderness. “…and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19:4).

That’s exactly how I felt. Lord, take me! Do something! Elijah felt despondent, and rightly so -- he was physically exhausted, for one thing. If we look at Elijah’s experience, we see that:

1. His physical condition (exhaustion) greatly affected his spiritual state (depression, despondency, self-pity).
2. Satan often tries to tempt or attack us when we’re weary or run-down. (fear, anxiety, doubt, etc)

Elijah was a mess; so was I. We both felt hopeless. We both needed to find rest and peace in God again. We needed to relinquish our fears and remember that God would, again, make provision for us. That’s when I asked Pastor M. what I could “do” to get better. His answer surprised me:

"Like Elijah, sometimes you need to rest and be fed. Eventually, you just get up and do the next thing, no matter how small.”

That ministered to me. I began to believe that God would, indeed, give me the strength to do the next thing. Pastor M. prayed that God would undergird me, protect me, encourage me, and fill me with His peace. As he prayed for a ray of hope, I cried. I could hardly muster energy to crawl out of bed those days. I didn’t care about food. Yet that very next morning I decided to make a piece of toast for myself. Like Elijah, I needed to get up and eat. Call it a simple act, but I sensed the gentle movement of God’s grace behind it. Making toast gave me hope. It was a small beginning, but a beginning, nonetheless. “Lord, I trust You. I don’t understand why it feels so dark, but I put my life in Your hands. Show me the way out of this depression.”

God's grace met me again and again. Yes, I got some counseling. Yes, I took some medicine. But the single most meaningful thing I did was cry those tears to the Lord in my helpless state. The Lord is good at translating tears. He guides us rightly when we call on Him. By inclining my heart towards Him, God began to blow away the dark clouds. I learned to take better care of myself physically, and how to nourish my spirit with His Word. I let His Word take root in me, build me up, and transform my life by renewing my mind. I had trusted Him with certain things; now I wanted to give Him my whole heart.

And so Abraham taught me to ‘go out,’ trusting God no matter where my faith journey took me. Elijah taught me that when I’m fearful, anxious, or weary, I can always find peace and rest in Christ. But to leave the land of inertia, sometimes I just need to ‘do the next thing.’ Remember that old saying? That God doesn’t move parked cars? Maybe if we slip our gear from “park” to “drive,” we can be like Abraham. We can trust that God knows exactly where He’s leading us even when we’re not familiar with any of the approaching landscape.

Beloved friend, whether we cry inwardly or outwardly in our inertia, God hears and moves to answer. May the sweetness and power of His grace meet you exactly where you are today. Call on Him. Then say goodbye to inertia.

“God did not abandon Job in his affliction. Nor will he forsake us in our struggles. Our pain and distress may serve as the very instruments that amplify God’s voice in our lives.” ~ Judy Gann, The God of All Comfort

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