September 9 Daily Devotional

Put on the whole armour of God!

Here we are, weary in well–doing, but what can we do? The first thing must be self-examination.... Sit down and say to yourself, ‘Well, now, why am I weary?’ ...

There are many possible answers to the question. You may be in that condition simply because you are working too hard physically. You can be tired in the work and not tired of the work…. If you go on working too hard or under strain you are bound to suffer. And of course if that is the cause of the trouble the remedy you need is medical treatment.... You remember that when Elijah had that attack of spiritual depression after his heroic effort on Mount Carmel, he sat down under a juniper tree and felt sorry for himself. But the real thing he needed was sleep and food; and God gave him both! He gave him food and rest before He gave him spiritual help.

But …. Something else may be the cause of the trouble, and very frequently it is that we may have been living the Christian life, or doing Christian work, by means of carnal energy. We may have been doing it all in our own strength instead of working in the power of the Spirit.... We may have been trying to do God’s work ourselves; and of course if we try to do that there will be only one result, it will ultimately crush us because it is such high work. And so we must examine ourselves and see if there is something wrong with the way in which we are doing this work. It is possible for a man to preach with carnal energy, and if he does he will soon be suffering from this spiritual exhaustion and depression.

Spiritual Depression, pp. 196–7