I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. In order to make that possible I read the passages and write my thoughts a day in advance. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

     A delegation went to Zechariah and asked him if they should continue to mourn and fast on the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, now that the Temple had been rebuilt. Zechariah responded by asking them if they had truly been fasting for God. He then told them that when they had holy festivals, they ate and drank to please themselves rather than to glorify God. He tells them that he has the same message that the prophets gave their ancestors, a message to which their ancestors had refused to listen.
     Zechariah tells them that rather than worry about feast days and fast days God wants them to judge fairly and show mercy and kindness to one another. God desires that they not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, or the poor. In addition, God commands that they not scheme against one another. This was the message to which their ancestors did not listen and as a result God sent them into exile. By their sins they had turned their pleasant land into a desert. This is an important message for any nation or people. If you oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and/or the poor and scheme against one another, you will turn a pleasant land into a desolate desert.

     As John’s vision reaches its climax, he saw a host of people gathered before God’s throne. They were the people who had been victorious over the beast by refusing to worship it or bear its number. They had remained faithful to God and now stood before Him to sing His praises. Now as His judgment was about to be poured out on the earth for the wicked ways of its people, they declared that God’s ways are just and true and all peoples and nations would learn to fear Him. All nations will praise and worship God in that day.

     I am not going to say that this is the complete answer, but this psalm outlines the place to start if you are suffering from depression. The psalmist appears to have been suffering from depression, but nevertheless he cried out to God. He was losing hope and paralyzed by fear, yet he remembered God’s great works and meditated on them. He turned to God and begged for an answer. He turned to God and chose to do God’s will. The psalmist rededicated himself to serving God and expressed his confidence that God would rescue from his distress because he believed in God’s unfailing love. I will not tell you that you may not need more treatment than this if you are suffering from depression, but I will tell you that this is the place to start. If depression is overwhelming you, cry out to God and ask His Spirit to show you what to do. Meditate on His word, seek to do His will, and His Spirit will show you the way out.

     The proverb writer tells us of small creatures which give us examples to follow. Ants are small and not particularly strong, but they work industriously preparing for times of hardship. Rock badgers are not powerful so they make their home among the rocks so that other creatures cannot get at them. Locusts have no hierarchy, yet they advance in ranks like an army. Lizards can be caught by hand, but they are everywhere. Let us be industrious, choose places of safety to live, work with others in an orderly fashion, and go wherever God sends us despite the danger.