A tremendous way to get rid of depression…

Mercy makes me happy.  That’s what JESUS says.  “Happy are the merciful.”  The opposite of that is true also:  “Unhappy are the unmerciful.” 

The most miserable people I know are people who are resentful, who refuse to give up a grudge, who are holding some unforgiveness over somebody else’s head.  They don’t realize they are hurting themselves.  Unmercifulness makes you miserable. 

Ben Franklin said, “When you’re good to other people you are best to yourself.”  That’s what JESUS said here.

Proverbs 11.17 (LB), “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.”

Doing acts of mercy gets us out of ourselves, gets the focus off of me and on to other people and produces happiness. 

A tremendous way to get rid of depression is to learn to develop due acts of mercy.  When you’re depressed and all of a sudden begin to be patient to those who are peculiar, forgiving to those who have fallen, helping those who are hurting, doing good to your enemies, you will watch the clouds of depression lift and blow away.  It gets you out of yourself and gets the focus off of you.  As you give your life away, the happiness comes. 

You ought to be merciful, simply because it makes you happy. It's a boomerang blessing:  what you give is what you get. 

Just a thought from the front porch…