Today’s topic has real potential to rile up the spiritual hall monitors. I expect I will hear from many of them. Recently I talked to a pastor about depression and anti-depressants. He was resisting trying medication for his struggles because he felt he wouldn’t be having these problems if he were a “better” Christian. Some folks had told him that he should trust God with his sadness. I agree. But there is sometimes more to the issue and we, as fellow sojourners in Christ, do a disservice if we merely give depressed friends the “buck-up and do better” pep talk. The old give hundred and ten percent for Jesus challenge can make a sad and lonely person feel even lower and more worthless. I have some experience with this topic. I am medicated and unrepentant. For years I went through emotional ups and downs that my wife described as my “funks”. She walked on relational eggshells when I was going through these moods. Finally I
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Over the past two years I have lost about thirty pounds. When asked how I used to joke that I had a radical new diet book idea called “The Burn More Calories Than You Consume Diet”. Now I realize that I was on the cutting edge of dietary research! I could have penned that book and finally achieved my dreams of writing a bestseller. Admittedly I would have had to add a bit of filler since the entire book could have been summarized with the phrase “eat less, exercise more”. Now a group of sober people with doctorates and lab coats have carefully evaluated all of popular diets and published their findings. “The hidden secret is it doesn’t matter if you focus on low-fat or low-carb,” said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research. Limiting the calories you consume and burning off more calories with exercise is key, she said. The study, which appears in Thursday’s New England
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