Whom Have I In Heaven But You

If we love a human being and do not love God,

we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude,

and when we do not get it, we become cruel and vindictive;

we are demanding of a human being that which he or she cannot give.

There is only one Being who can satisfy the last aching abyss

of the human heart  and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why our Lord is apparently so severe regarding

every human relationship is because he

knows that every relationship not

based on loyalty to Himself

will end in disaster.

[Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (July 30), 154]

Psalm 73:25-26

²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

Ancient Words to Describe Depression

“My eye has grown dim from grief (depression), it grows weak because of all my foes,” (Job 17:7, emphasis added)

“My grief (depression) is beyond healing, my heart is sick within me” (Jeremiah 8:18, emphasis added).

The early Church Fathers called depression dejection.  St. John Cassian described dejection this way:  obscuring the soul, keeping it from good works, preventing it from praying and reading, the inability to be gentle and compassionate toward our brethren, instilling hatred of work, undermining resolutions and persistence, and captivity to despairing thoughts. The contemporary scientific criteria that describe depression include: feeling sad or empty, diminished interest or pleasure, agitation, energy loss, and inability to think.

“Wistful Dejection,” Benjamin Victor Kelley