Our lives appear always to be in a constant state of change. Happiness and frustration are never very far removed from each other. I have been away from the Psalms too long. David’s psalms come from many different places and attitudes in life. From “The Lord is my shepherd…” (Psalms 23:1) to “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me…” (Psalms 51:11 KJV), David is constantly in a state of change. God speaks about David as a man after his own heart (Acts 13:22). Perhaps we can find some comfort on the roller coaster of our lives by finding ourselves in the Psalms.

David cries out:

I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
(Psalms 6:6).

We relate to that when we are in one of those difficult times in our own lives. On the other hand, he could write:

In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
For You alone, O LORD,
make me to dwell in safety.
(Psalms 4:8)

What a shift in attitude! Life happens so quickly at times.

One of the things I try to impress on those I am counseling is that their life is not all that different from the lives of others. I often find resistance getting across that idea. Ordinarily our lives all have ups and downs. What makes a difference is when we begin to focus only on one or the other.

Depression can be suffocating when one focuses solely on the downs. All that seems to be noticed is the very difficult and the bad. Just the slightest break from that pattern can signal the beginning of a return to healthy living. If we can strike one note of a sense of humor together, I know we are on the way to improvement.

On the other hand, there are those few who never seem to see anything bad. They live in a world of their own and are every bit as difficult to restore to normal as the depressed. It would seem that one who always sees only good would be a joy, but what really happens is that they fail to function in the real world and can cause heavy damage by their denial.

What is the solution? Get real! Life is sometimes difficult, but it is also full of joy and goodness if one only looks for them. What is it that the Apostle Paul writes?

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

For those who are filling their lives with Paul’s approach to life, David has one more promise:

…weeping may stay for the night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.
(Psalms 30:5).