Bible Passage: “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.” (Philippians 4:10 ESV)
Scripture Reading: Philippians 4:6-8
Over the course of this week, we’ve looked at the keys to men pushing through depression found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
We’ve talked about the importance of a sense of purpose, the danger of avoiding pain, the power of service, the centrality of worship, and the need to contend for hope.
As we wrap up our time together today, I’ve wrestled with what part of the last chapter of Philippians to end on.
I thought about concluding with Philippians 4:6, emphasizing the importance of bringing all our needs and requests to the Lord through prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving. I decided, though, that I’d leave it up to your pastor to teach you about that.
I also thought about wrapping up with Philippians 4:8 and talking about the importance of focusing our thinking on what’s true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. I decided, though, that I’d leave this for you to work on with a good Christian therapist who does Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Ultimately, I decided to end with today’s little verse in the second half of this chapter of Philippians.
We see here Paul’s joy in recognizing the Philippians’ revived concern for him. He’s realizing in this short verse that they, in fact, had always been concerned for him, but he likely wasn’t aware because they had no opportunity to express that concern.
One of the most difficult parts of depression is feeling like no one cares about us. As men, when we don’t think that people care, we’ll often put on a mask and hide everything.
This leaves us feeling more alone than ever before.
Yet, one of the most important parts of healing is recognizing that people, in fact, do care deeply about us. We take away the opportunity for them to make this known to us, though, when we don’t tell them what’s going on.
If you don’t feel that people care because they haven’t been reaching out to you, checking in on you, or asking how you’re doing, my question for you is this:
Have you given them the opportunity to show you their concern for you?
As we conclude our week together, my final prompt for you is this: would you give the people in your life a chance to show you their care?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, give me the courage to reach out to someone today to let them know how I’ve been feeling. I pray that, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, the truth would come to light, and that the people in my life would have the opportunity to show their concern for me and walk with me through my healing. Amen.
Reflection: Who can you reach out to today to open up about your difficulties? What has been keeping you from reaching out to those in your life and sharing with them what you’ve been going through?
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