The Promise of Joy: Overcoming Depression
Christian, are you asking yourself where is the “joy unspeakable” the bible talks about? Have you been battling depression and feel like God must have forgotten you when He made promises concerning joy?
Maybe you feel like you’re more sensitive than other people. You take everything to heart, and you can’t help it. That’s the way you are. But deep inside, you hope for more. You want that joy listed in the fruit of the Spirit.
You haven’t given up. You keep asking, “When, Lord, when?”
I was once where you are now. I battled depression for thirty-one years. Most of those years, I was a Christian. I didn’t know the secret to being joyful. I begged God. I prayed. I asked others. What’s the secret to joy? How can I have joy in the midst of life’s storms? No one could help me.
Then God spoke, and I was free.
God taught me:
How to be happy even when bad things are happening around me
How to view life in a positive light always
How to never get depressed
How to tap into God Himself to get more joy
How to release joy on purpose to flood my heart
How to see myself as God sees me
…. and most importantly the key to living a joy-filled life
How to know God more intimately.
This book isn’t about using your will to be happy. It isn’t about you fixing yourself with scripture. There are beliefs you have about yourself and about God that are preventing you from receiving what He has promised you.
Joy is yours, and Jesus wants you to have it now. He wants to fill your heart with joy like an overflowing fountain. Let’s talk about it so you can get free of depression forever!
An Effortless Way to Relate to God
Many of us walk around with the idea that we would like to be close to God like people in the Bible, but for some reason we aren’t meant to have that. That’s not true. It’s meant for you to know God as well as anyone else you could think of. Whether it’s Kathryn Kuhlman, Billy Graham, Joseph the Patriarch, King David, or John the Apostle, you are meant to know God as well as they do. The Good News is, if you are born again, if you are a child of God in the new and living way God has provided by believing in Jesus, you are predestined to know God as completely as God already knows you. You will one day, even if you have to wait for eternity. But you don’t have to wait, and I can show you how.
How I learned to hear God’s Voice and how He leads me.
My life has been punctuated with evidence of a very real God. Some instances I would call miraculous. Being ignorant of anything other than the steps to salvation, I bumbled through the darkness. I wasn’t sure about what God was doing or what He was saying. I believed I was the only sheep who couldn’t hear His voice.
Then something shifted. Truth changed my view of the Holy Spirit. He challenged all I had been taught about the ways of God. The Lord directly and through others overthrew my religious beliefs. When I believed I could already hear and that I am already being led, I began to notice God’s involvement in my life. Most of all, I began to hear.
This book outlines some interesting moves of the Spirit in my personal life. I describe how I learned to recognize God’s voice and how His Spirit leads me. You’ll see my mistakes and my victories, and hopefully you’ll see God’s desire to have conversations with all of us, right in our own hearts.
Something was always lacking until the God I knew in me became tangible, something in which I could put my faith.
I had become dull of hearing. I had lost the joy of just knowing him. He was still there, I could tell, but I had grown tired of letting him be my satisfaction alone. The deaf ears turned toward me from every direction were able to stifle my zeal. My hope was not in God alone. My knowledge had not been enough. I needed a heart-deep satisfaction that came from only one place: God himself.
It was with a pure heart that I would see God.
Did she truly hear God speak, or was she losing her mind?
Trying to kill herself landed Alyssa Lively in a psych ward. One woman, who seemed as screwed up as she was, told her to reach out to God. Wasn’t Jesus in heaven, far away from her and her problems? If she reached out to Him, would He help, or was darkness waiting just outside the window?
Paralyzed by fear and sure the enemy was poised to devour her, Alyssa heard God’s voice. He made her a promise. “I’m going to teach you My ways, and you will reach others.” She wasn’t sure she could trust the voice, but if she wanted freedom, she had to give it a try.
Jasmine has her own plan to find a husband, and it doesn’t include God. She has a list of qualities her prince must meet. He has to be handsome and tall and have money—for a start. When online dating sites produce nothing but men who want one thing from Jasmine, she’s had enough.
Going to church has started Jasmine on the path to knowing who God is and who He made her to be. She’s shocked when the drive to find someone fades away. Feelings of depression turn to joy. Now she wants the peace she sees in her new best friend.
Everyone says all Seth cares about is God. That’s fine with Jasmine because Seth is ordinary, and he doesn’t match her list at all. Then the Lord speaks to her, and a prophetic dream of her prince seems to point to Seth. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Seth is interested in her that way.
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