Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":
If someone is sad or melancholy, we in today’s culture usually condemn him/her as mentally ill, and useless to society. In the ancient
The October ATLANTIC magazine has Abraham Lincoln on its cover and says: “Today he’d be called ‘unfit for office’—but his struggles with mental illness gave him the tools to bind a nation” in its Civil War wounds. The article says: “Being able to look troubling reality straight in the eye also proved a great strength” of character. His problem may not have been genuine mental illness: perhaps he simply understood the reality of our humanity in our corporate alienation from God. “Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud!” was his favorite poem he loved to recite to people who wanted him to crack jokes. Slavery and the Civil War, he felt, were no joke.
One wonders what he would do if he were in the White House today.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3). But He was truly “healthy.” His grief enabled Him to sympathize with you and heal you—and the world. Says Jesus: “Happy are those who mourn: God will comfort them!” (Matt. 5:4, TEV). Sounds backward. But only those who have been hungry can ever be truly thankful for a square meal. Every loaf of bread is stamped with the cross that Jesus bore for us. The “faith” that the Bible talks about includes the gift of being able to appreciate what that loaf of bread you eat cost the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” We learn to walk softly. We look reality in the eye—soberly. That’s happiness.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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