Joel M Bradshaw

17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.–Ephesians 3

I counseled a friend yesterday who is journeying with depression. She has recently gone through divorce and is struggling with the value statements that others have proclaimed to her or about her. The depression fight is to not maintain the destructive stories of other people, but instead to tell yourself good and true things from the perspective of God and faith. This can only happen if the verses above are your reality.

One of the greatest blessings of the Christian faith is that Jesus is spiritually dwelling within the inner person of the Christian. The Christian is a wonderful tree that is rooted in God’s love.

It takes strength to trust in God during harder times. It is not easy to comprehend that the only person that can value you is God when others have torn you down for years. And that the God who can value you indeed does. My friend needed that perspective. She craved understanding the dimensions of God’s love for her. Her inner person needs now to maintain that story rather than the destructive stories of her ex and others.

Do those verses describe your inner person? What story can you maintain?–JMB