The purpose of this study is to think about and discuss what it means to seek God by digging deep into the Bible texts listed below.

Two Bible Study Ideas:

1. In looking at the different passages try to ask yourself if they all refer to the same thing (essentially) or different things.
2. Also, see if you can define “seeking God” without using any religious terms (other than “God” or “Jesus”).   I also suggest that you read the passages in a translation that you don’t normally use.  This can sometimes help us to see a passage from a fresh perspective.   Don’t worry about getting through the whole list. It’s more important that you find at least one or two of these passages to stimulate your thinking or to savor.  Also, the order is not significant I simple put the references in the order of the books of the Bible.  It might be good to start with the passages that you are least drawn to and know the least about.

Four  More Bible Study Ideas:

1. Write down a short definition for the phrase “seeking God” and then as you ponder each passage edit or rewrite your definition.
2. Keep a running list of adjectives that clarify what “seeking God” means.
3. Or, you could try to complete this sentence for each passage you examine:  Seeking God involves ________________.
4. Another tip might be to look for patterns.  Just making the list below I started to see an emerging theme of humility associated with seeking God ( a la Luke 18:9-14).  Hmmm….

Study Title:  Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Psalm 24:7-10
Isaiah 55:1-7
Matthew 7:7-11
Matthew 11:25-30
Mark 1:17-20
John 1:11-13; 4:10; 5:24; 6:40,54; 7:37-38; 8:12, 31-32; 10:16; 15:4; 14:21; 15:7; 16:24
Romans: 12:1-2; 14:17
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Galatians 5:16-18
Colossians 3:1-4
Hebrews 4:16
1 Peter 1:13; 5:6-9
1 John 4:13
Revelation 22:16-17

If someone were to ask me, “How can I grow quickly in my ability to communicate?” I would probably say that it’s more complicated than that.  Like other psychologists I would be likely point to the many factors that go into someone’s communication style.  For example, there is a somewhat predictable set of problems in learning how to improve communication skills  when your parents were alcoholics.

How to Improve Communication:  It’s Hard to Listen When You are Having  a Temper Tantrum

But in reality, there are some very simple ways to greatly improve your ability to communicate clearly and effectively.  Consider this simple observation:  in order for a young child to learn to talk, they must be able to listen and speak.  Oh, and the young child needs to have a minimal amount of emotonal control.   It’s really hard to listen when you are having a temper tantrum.  It really doesn’t get much more simple than that.

Now, consider a husband and wife having an argument that is getting them nowhere.  She doesn’t feel like he is really hearing what she is saying.  He feels misunderstood.  They are both getting angry.  Each of them gets louder to try to drive their own point home.  But as the volume increases, so does the defensiveness.  Listening deteriorates.  Misunderstandings flourish in the soil of poor listening.  Soon the growing anger spawns an irratioinal, frenzied thought process that pretty much nails the coffin shut on any hope of productive communication.  What’s going on here?  Answer:  it’s hard to listen when you are having a temper tantrum.

How to Improve Communications Skills in a Matter of Days or Weeks

When couples later analyze together an exchange like I just described, they often see it in terms of blame.  So the first step  for learning how to improve communication skills quickly is to change the question.  Instead of, “Who is at fault here?” the question needs to become, “How can I calm myself down enough to listen?”

The next step for how to improve communication skills quickly is to find a method for learning physical relaxation skills.  Relaxation exercises involving deep breathing are the best, in my opinion, because if your brain sees that your lungs are chilling out, it will start calming the rest of your body.  This is the critical step for how to improve communication skills quickly.  You simply have to calm yourself if you are going to listen and you simply cannot have a productive conversation without listening.

How to Improve Communication Skills Quickly:  Two More Simple Steps for Change

The next steps are to practice the method for a few weeks every day and start shifting your mental focus on listening whenever you feel your adrenaline starting to pump through your brain in the form of anger.  In a nutshell, to learn how to improve communication skills quickly, you need to do these four steps over a period of 14-30 days:

1. Change the question.  Instead of asking how is to blame, focus on how you can calm yourself down enough to listen.
2. Find a method for learning physical relaxation skills
3. Practice the method daily for 2 to 3 weeks.
4. Focus on listening instead of talking.

I have installed a new blog that is in it’s beta phase.  The focus is to explore bible study topics via online bible studies that are often overlooked by the mainstream.  The goal is to have a blog that pays attention to detail when it is necessary to do so.  It takes time and thought to uncover the literary, historical, and cultural richness of biblical writings.  But the payoff can include a great deal of encouragement that cannot be found by simplistic approaches to the more controversial passages.

There are some folks who can be quick to offer christian marriage advice.  As a group, we christians are nervous about how quickly and pervasively marriages are abandoned husbands or wives or both.  Our concern is justified.  But there is often a consideration that we overlook.  It is this:  God loves the individuals in the marriage more than he loves the institution of marriage.

When christian marriage advice is on the tip of our tongue we are wise to ask ourselves, “Does the advice I’m about to give spring from my concern to go on record that I am taking a stand, or does it come from a place inside me that genuinely cares for this person’s highest good?”  Asking this question can help us gain some much needed perspective, particularly when a marriage involves addiction or violence.

Christian marriage advice always needs to be informed by all of Jesus’ tense conversations with the Pharisees.  In these vigorous debates, Jesus reveals a perspective of God’s love for people that can trump even some of the institutions that God Himself established centuries previously.  From healing and “harvesting” on the Sabbath to welcoming those whose loyalties do not seem to be with God’s people, Jesus truly upset the applecart as revealed His new reign as king.

Imagine sitting down and trying to make a list of bible study ideas by asking the question, “What are all the topics and books of the bible that I am least interested in?”

One of the main challenges in studying the bible is to open our hearts to truths that we are hardwired to overlook.  If I make a list of bible study ideas for myself,  I am likely to be drawn toward bible study lessons and topics that address my needs, my hopes, my relationships, and my situation.  Furthermore, I am likely to project my own biases onto the text that I read, especially if I lack understanding of the historical, linguistic, and cultural setting in which a particular book of the bible was written.

For this reason, it is often good to read something in the Bible that you don’t find as interesting as those sections at the top of your list of bible study ideas.  For example, I recently read the little book of Philemon.  This is a letter from Paul to a fellow Christian who “owned” slaves.   Paul tells Philemon that he is sending Philemon’s slave back to him.

It has never been at the top of my list of bible study ideas to examine Paul’s letter to Philemon because I don’t believe in slavery, I’m not a slave, nor to I have slaves.  Furthermore,  Paul is not speaking out (overtly) against slavery.  This makes me very uncomfortable.  But what I discovered was most interesting.  Paul expresses his beliefs about equality among all God’s children and then eloquently undercuts the beliefs and assumptions that supported the institution of slavery.

Christianity is about love, but it is also about truth.  Depression often forces a disciple of Jesus to face spiritual denial, avoidance of responsibilities, or simply the lack of wisdom in knowing how to live in the real world.  Overcoming depression in such circumstances is a painful process because the misery of the depression beckons us to grow in some uncomfortable ways. Overcoming depression almost always involves our being weened from our false views of people, God, ourselves, and what we can realistically expect from life and love.

When the brain is in a depressed state God seems absent.  On the other hand, the darker powers of evil seem all too accessible.  This can make individual prayer nearly impossible because it so easily uncorks the wine of sadness and frustration.  Here are a few tips for overcoming depression if you are in such a dark tunnel.

• Find a book of written prayers and read them out loud to God.  Depression impairs concentration and memory, so don’t play ball on depression’s home turf.  Written prayers give your prayers more substance, focus, and prevent you from drifting into the undertow of negativity.
• Stop expecting to feel God’s comforting presence…for now.  It’s a time of declaring your trust in His promises even when He seems silent. Let God be God.  Accept the fact that God sees you even if you don’t see Him.
• Listen to audio recordings of 2 Corinthians, Psalms, the Gospels and Romans.  Reading is often very difficult when you are depressed.  Besides, did you know that in biblical times people hardly ever read the bible:  they listened to it being read to them.  Focus on these areas of Scripture because you are probably needing an overhaul in your view of the meaning of Christian suffering in your life.  Overcoming depression without this piece of the puzzle is a bypass of one of the most amazing gems that can emerge out of the fire of suffering.
• Get a mental health evaluation.  Overcoming depression is a spiritual matter, but it is also profoundly physical.  Most Christians are either in denial about the fact that the brain is a physical organ or they just don’t like thinking about it.

The stages of depression and the stages of bereavement are sometimes very similar.  This is particularly true when the cause of the depression is a major loss to a man, woman, or child.  In fact, with such a reactive depression one could argue that the depression IS the mourning of a serious loss.  The stages of depression not only mirror the stages of bereavement they are the stages of bereavement.   Often times this grieving aspect of depression is overlooked by friends and family because the loss is something unseen by others:  the loss of future dream, the loss of hope, a miscarriage, the empty nest, or the loss of personal power.

The stages of depression include onset when the dimensions of a loss are sinking in.  This stage can be followed by desperate bewilderment about the way symptoms of depression are hindering and dampening life.  Often the third stage is when a person realizes that the depression itself is a huge overwhelming problem.  At this stage people often decide to seek change and/or they become suicidal, abuse substances, or retreat from life altogether.  The common theme running through all these responses to depression is a desperate attempt to break out of the misery that a person feels trapped in.

Assuming a person makes good choice for treatment, the next stage involves short term symptom relief.  This is followed by a time in therapy in which deeper understanding is sought, “How did I get to that dark place?”  “Are there deeper changes that I need to make in my life so that I won’t go there again?”  The last of the stages of depression is resuming normal living in terms of engaging with people, being energized by new and more realistic dreams for the future and enjoying the depth of self awareness gained in therapy.  These stages of depression are not researched-based.  Rather, they come from my years of tracking people as they go through the stages of depression.

When we speak of managing depression it usually refers to a clinical depression that is has been around for a long time.  There are various kinds of depression that are either long term due to trauma or due to hereditary factors.  For example, bipolar depression comes and goes during a person’s life.  The “treatment” involves managing depression symptoms rather than getting rid of the illness.

For people who suffer from chronic, life-long depression road is indeed difficult.   There is evidence that Abraham Lincoln battled lifelong depression.  Charles Spurgeon, a great preacher of the 19th century, is said to have battled depression all his life.  Today, we have medications that greatly help with containing the damage caused by chronic depression.  While some people fear this technology, I thank God for it.  I have seen so many people get their lives back after finally discovering a treatment effective for them. God created in His image as male and female.  It is this and only this that makes it possible for men and women to conduct research and discover new solutions.  God is our Creator and so we create by inventing marvelous things.

So managing depression that  persists really comes down to two main tasks.  First, it means using the best of our current knowledge about depression.  Second, it involves harnessing the best of current technology for managing depression symptoms.

Male depression is much more frequent than most people realize.   Here are a few of my thoughts about why male depression is often overlooked.  First, men don’t stop and ask for directions.  Joking aside, men often can’t get their mind around using resources like therapy until they are deep inside the suicidal zone.  Second, depression is a beast that morphs from overt sadness  into anger for many men.  Irritability, rage, and being tightly wound are hallmarks of male depression.

Now consider what this means.  If a friend of yours is obviously very sad, you may be inclined to reach out to her.  But if it is depressed man who is raging at you, then you are probably more concerned about getting out of the way than reaching out.  And so it goes, many men suffer from male depression and don’t know it or won’t acknowledge it.  The people who love them suffer from the hard edge of the anger.

Christians who suffer from clinical depression often experience loneliness and depression together in tight fellowship.   Why is this?  One reason is that depression itself makes a person feel disconnected.  Big crowd loneliness and depression creates a feeling of not belonging.  People in the church are attracted to movers and the shakers.  When you are depressed you feel out of the loop even if you are keeping very busy.  It’s also true that depression can make serving in the church feel like pure obligation with no heart.  Loneliness and depression can then set the stage for a crisis-of-faith questions like, “Why am I doing this?”  “What’s the point?”  “Doesn’t anyone know that I am struggling here?”  “Does anyone care?”

The main antidote for this situation is for people to pay attention.  We need to work to provide of culture of caring for individuals with the Body of Christ.  One simple and practical way to deal with loneliness and depression in the church is to ask, “How are you?” with an expectation to listen carefully for more than a few seconds.