Depression: feeling law

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Isaiah 64:5-6


As Christians, we know this.  At least on an intellectual level.

In the pit of depression, I feel this.  Filthy rags, sin, everywhere.  And I can’t get it OFF.   

I can’t run from it, I can’t think myself out of it

Sin is inflamed. I am nearly consumed.   Help seems not to come.

In the pit, I feel the law.

I feel the sin in my own heart.  I am presented with needs, with opportunities to love, and I fail.  And fail.  And fail.

It is here in this horrid place that I learn a new kind of faith: a faith that stops trying to do, and  learns to simply receive.  To receive with my ears, to hear objective truth, and to remember that it is true even when I do not feel it.

For by grace you have been saved, through faith. 

 And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God.  Ephesians 2:8

For more thoughts on the distinctions between faith, words, virtue, and grace, see this post.