“The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear a crushed spirit?” (Proverbs 18:14)
I’ve known a number of people faced with a terminal illness yet who were more upbeat than others I’ve known who were facing job loss or shame because of a family member’s error or even a broken-down car.
It doesn’t make sense — in a purely logical evaluation — if the face of a person dying in three months is painted with more smiles than is the soon-to-be-laid-off person who has been given three months to find another career.
But we all know this scenario is not uncommon.
Many people are depressed over things far less worse than what the upbeat terminal cancer victim is facing.
Why is this so?
You and I have both thought about this on many occasions and have likely told ourselves that we’d be smiling, too, if we were on the bus to eternity that was about to pull into the train station to glory.
I pray that this is true for you and for me.
Making sure we’re right with God is the key, of course.
When we know we’re entering a new, eternal chapter in our lives, we’re not chained to depressing thoughts about what we’re losing or have lost.
We’re already anticipating a forever life without chains of any sort.
No wonder we’ll be smiling.
Listen, chains stink.
And a crushed spirit is one that feels enrobed in chains with no clue as to where the key is to unlock them.
You and I know people with crushed spirits.
Let’s love them, encourage them, provide blessings to them and share with them the Good News of God’s merciful love so that they might start considering what they can have waiting for them in glory rather than obsessing about what has been lost and cannot be reclaimed.
Let’s also do our best to show them a spirit that can endure any disappointment in this life without giving up on the faith that can assure an appointment with spiritual utopia in the next life.
As always, I love you
Martin
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