Joel M Bradshaw

2Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples3and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”–Matthew 11

1. John the Baptist was clearly depressed. In depression we tell ourselves stories. Those stories maintain a narrative that affects how we think about our situations in life.
2. Our thinking then influences our feelings and as the years go by, we begin to feel the weight of that heavy depression blanket.
3. John’s depression has him no doubt questioning his purpose in life, his success and failure. He was to prepare the way for the Messiah and he was in prison while the Messiah was not doing some Messiah things.
4. Many Jewish people in Jesus’ day expected the Messiah to be more of a military ruler. The Jesus we see in Revelation 19 is not the same Jesus in Matthew 11. In his first coming,
5. Jesus actually was defeating a bigger enemy than Rome. He conquered sin and the grave!
6. But in his depressing situation, John didn’t see it. And so Jesus gave John a wonderful gift. He gave him some new self-talk. Jesus filled John’s mental quiver with wonderful self-talk arrows to fire back at his depression.
7. He got his thoughts away from himself and his story about his situation to Jesus and a new story about what really was the reality.
8. As I journey with depressed individuals, this is our Biblical plan of attack. What stories are they telling themselves most? Are those stories in fact true? What new stories should they instead maintain? This is really all we have in depression, but it’s all we need.
9. Intentionality in daily maintaining the right stories is the first great step with depression. The next step is to get the focus off of the self and onto others. Volunteer service is great for the depressed. I found joy in waking up early every morning to write this blog.
10. Jesus gave John a new story and expected John in his depression to maintain it. What new story has Jesus given you? What great self-talk from the Bible should you maintain? This is key.–JMB