Rick Hughes invites listeners to discover a divine prescription for overcoming sadness and depression, highlighting stories from King David’s trials to the immense sufferings of Job. Through the teachings of Proverbs and Psalms, this episode offers profound insights on how engaging deeply with spiritual wisdom can lead to personal contentment and joy. Explore how this journey of faith, filled with God’s promises and compassion, can transform your life amid the challenges and distractions of the modern world.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and I’d like to invite you to stick around for a little bit, 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and absolutely no manipulation. That’s right, we’re not gonna sell you anything, we’re not gonna hustle money, we’re not gonna ask for money, we’re not gonna solicit membership, we’re just going to teach a small Bible study. If you’re interested in learning the Word of God and willing to orient and adjust to that, then you’re in the right place. But no games, no gimmicks, just information, not speculation, not human speculation, but divine revelation from the Bible. So I hope you’ll stick around. That’s what I want to talk to you about today. It’s very critical and it’s going on in our country a whole lot. As we face uncertainty and turmoil across America, there’s a lot of depression. There’s a lot of loneliness. I meet with teenagers all the time as I travel and speak in private schools across the country, I find a lot of kids are very lonely. A lot of kids are very depressed, as I run into a lot of parents that have had situations that are depressed. Depression and loneliness is an epidemic proportion in America today, and I’d like to talk about that. Maybe you yourself are experiencing some sort of depression or some sort of loneliness. And one of the things that’s so wonderful about having a flat line in your soul is you don’t have to live like that. because the outside sources of adversity can be conquered by the inside source of the filling of the Holy Spirit and having a main line of resistance in your soul. So yes, you have adversity, but stress, you do that one to yourself. You don’t have to live like that. There’s some divine promises in the Bible that you can rest in and you can claim and take a rest in when you’re feeling lonely or depressed. I’d like to read some of them to you, if you’ll let me, and we’ll make some comments on them. Here’s one, Psalm 34, 18. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. People that have internal sadness, people that are devastated or crushed. David wrote this after he had visited a town called Nob and had gone before the priest at Nob named Abimelech. And the priest was willing to help him. David concocted the story that he was on a special mission for King Saul when actually Saul was trying to kill him. and he said he needed some food and a weapon and he lied to the priest and of course Abimelech helped him, supplied him with food and weapon, assist him whatever he needed. And when Saul found out what had happened, he came up there and killed all 45 priests with whom David lied to. Wasn’t their fault, they didn’t do anything wrong. And they were all murdered by Saul. This was a cause of great regret and great remorse in David. 1 Samuel 21, 1 through 10 is the story. And 1 Samuel 22, 22 is David’s regret. So listen again to what the Bible says. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. That’s those that are internally devastated, sad, crushed. And he saves those who are crushed in spirit, the Bible says. The afflictions of the righteous are many. It may be you, but the Lord rescues him from all of them. That’s a divine protection provision for you, as well as peace of mind and confidence in the care of God for you. He heals the brokenhearted. That’s what the verse says. That means those that are dejected and defeated due to circumstances beyond their control. And he binds up their wounds, Psalm 147, verse 3. He heals the brokenhearted, those that are dejected and defeated due to circumstances beyond their control, and binds up their wounds or comforts and cares to deliver them from destruction. Now, how does God do all of this? Actually, we find in the scriptures divine provision. And by faith, we trust and relax, let the Lord handle it. But the key is this word right here. And this comes out of Jeremiah. Your words were found and I ate them. Your words were found and I ate them. That means that the Word of God has been metabolized. The Word of God has been eaten. The Word of God has been swallowed and applied. Most folks don’t have an appetite for the Word of God. I’m going to say that again. Most folks, I don’t know about you, they do not have an appetite for an intense study of the Word of God. They prefer a little bit of emotion. They prefer a little bit of sing-along, but an intense study of the Bible, they don’t have an appetite for that. And this is what the writer of Proverbs said. Listen to this. This is Proverbs 2, 1 through 11. It’s a long passage, but I want you to hear it. My son, if you accept my words, that’s if, it’s condition, and if you tune your ear to wisdom, turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding, this is the solution to loneliness and the solution to depression. Turn your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding. And indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as silver and search for it as a hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God because God gives wisdom. From his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He alone holds success in store for the upright. And here it is for you. He is a shield for those whose walk is blameless. For he guards the course of the just and protects the way of the faithful ones. Then and only then you will understand what is right, what is just, what is fair, what is every good path. For wisdom will then enter your heart, and listen to this, knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. That means you will love studying God’s word. It will be pleasant like a great big bowl of spaghetti or a great big steak or a great big whatever you want. Pleasant. You can’t wait to sink your teeth into it. When you get like that towards the word of God and the word of God becomes pleasant, then the next verse in verse 11 says, discretion will then protect you and understanding will guard you. That’s a divine promise from God found in where? Proverbs 2, 1 through 11. Mark it in your Bible and read it. In Jeremiah 15, 16a, your words were found and I ate them, and your words became a joy to me and a delight to my heart. This is the divine prescription for depression. not a pill, the divine prescription for depression is here. Your words were found and I ate them. And they became a joy, not a misery, a joy to me. And my soul delighted, my heart was full of joy. Listen, I recognize that many of our military vets are subject to PTSD due to combat exposure, and for that matter, anyone who witnesses a terrifying event can have PTSD. It can get stuck in your memory system and just keep surfacing when you least expect it. But is there a way to live without depression and without stress? Yes. Are you willing to seek the cure? That’s the question. Are you willing to seek the cure? Because there is a divine guarantee that it works. Not overnight, but the good thing is it’s free. You won’t have to take any medicine, but I do recognize in some situations medicines are necessary. So I’m not telling you to quit taking your medicine. Talk with your doctor if you have a question about that. But I’m telling you that the spiritual life and what God can provide through his word can give you peace and contentment and joy and happiness. Listen to Lamentations 3.22. The Lord’s acts of mercy indeed never end. His compassion never fails. That means he loves you. He cares for you. If you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are one of God’s wonderful children. So what’s new every morning, this verse says? His mercy is new every morning. His compassion is new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. The writer went on to say, the Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those who await him, to the persons who seek him. Is this you? Do you get up each morning ready to see his faithfulness? Circumstances in life can sometimes be very brutal, I know that. Job had one of those brutal days in Job 1, 13 through 20. The Bible says one day Job’s sons and daughters were fasting, feasting and drinking wine at the older brother’s house. And a messenger came to Job and said, the ox were plowing and the donkeys were grazing and the Sabians attacked and made off with them. In other words, they stole all your cattle and your mules. Then they put your servants to the sword and I’m the only one who escaped to tell you about it. And while he was telling him that, another messenger came running up and said, The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I’m the only one who escaped to tell you. While he was still speaking, it’s two of them standing there telling him what’s happening. Another messenger came and said, The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them, and they put your servants to the sword, and I’m the only one who escaped to tell you. That’s three. And then number four, while he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the older brother’s house when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it collapsed on them, and they are dead, and I’m the only one who escaped to tell you. After all of this, Job got up, tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground, and worshiped God. This is one of the best known examples of undeserved suffering ever recorded. It’s recorded in the book of Job. In a matter of just a few minutes, Job, a prominently wealthy and godly man, lost everything he had, his possessions, his children, and his health. His wife, bless her heart, she suggested that he end his misery by cursing God and dying. That’s not too smart. His friends condemned him for something he did not do. They thought he had been in sin, and so God was punishing him. And it seemed to him that God was ignoring him, refusing to answer his prayers. How, how, how can a man endure pressure like this? and not react with anger, not react with bitterness, not react with loneliness, not be depressed. I mean, perhaps you yourself have had similar disasters that were devastating and undeserved. Suffering is not always a retribution from God. Remember that. Don’t forget that. You live in the devil’s world, and he is a known murderer. Jesus said in John 8, 44, you belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there’s no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and a father of lies. So Jesus said Satan is a liar and a murderer. Paul wrote to Timothy and said about suffering in 2 Timothy 2.3, suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. So here we have it. You live in the devil’s world. So how do you overcome this depression and associated loneliness that comes with it in spite of the circumstances and the details in your life? Well, I want to tell you this. It comes through a local church where the qualified pastor teaches you God’s word. But the church is not designed to be a lonely hearts club. It’s not what it is. You have to have a well-qualified pastor to teach you God’s word, not some cruise ship director. I was talking to a friend this morning about this, about a pastor who teaches doctrine faithfully. But in doing so, he does not personally interfere with the privacy of the believers in the church, the privacy of the priesthood of his congregations. If he does that, by so doing this, he’s a true leader, right? for he can permit the Holy Spirit to make the point and the Holy Spirit to interfere into the lives of the believers. But on the other hand, some pastors are like managers of a cruise ship, sometimes because they have inordinate ambition and they try to gain attention and attendance by many people. And so you will wind up having a church full of a lonely hearts club. people that depend on programs, and the pastor develops and promotes these programs so that people don’t really come to hear him, but to participate in all the activities that he uses to attract and regulate the lives of those in the congregation. That’s not the Christian life. I mean, Christians do that, but this is not what God planned for you. That Christian life God gave you demands spiritual autonomy. where you take control of your own life, know your own limits, personal control of what you think. Autonomy means a status of you being independent and free and self-directed and self-controlling over your emotions, over the lust of your sin nature, having self-restraint and poise, which is the ability for you to think under pressure. Come on, if you’ve been jilted in romance, it doesn’t change the fact that you have a personal sense of destiny. I was talking to a young man the other day whose girlfriend jilted him. He’s 16, she’s 15 or 16, and he couldn’t eat for two days. He’s depressed. I told him, shape up, dude. Be a man. Tell her to have a nice day. Move on down the road. Life is too short for drama. Listen, you have a personal sense of destiny. And if you’ve been treated unjustly, it doesn’t change the fact you still have a personal sense of destiny. It’s one of our problem-solving devices. Problem-solving device number six, God has a plan for your life. And if you’ve lost your job, lost out in your social group, lost out and you’re lonely or isolated, that does not imply that God doesn’t still have a plan for you. All you have to do is ask. Have I received Christ as my Savior? Well, did you? Did you receive Christ? Yes, well, then you have problem-solving devices. And having that personal sense of destiny is critical for you to understand. And you’re only going to understand it with spiritual growth. And if you get in some spiritual growth, it’s going to bring spiritual combat. Combat will bring disassociation from those that are not serious about advancing. That’s what I run into. I run into people say, nice job, preacher. I enjoyed that preacher. But they’re not serious about really getting with it and studying. A lot of them have regrets. A lot of them have guilt. These are all distractions because everybody fails. Adam even failed in perfect environment in the Garden of Eden. David failed as king. Peter failed the night before Christ was arrested. And you and I have both failed. That’s the beauty of rebound, problem-solving device number one. We can recover and we don’t look back. If the smoke clears after you fail and you’re still alive, God still has a plan for you. In 2 Corinthians 12 10, therefore on behalf of Christ, I’m content with my weaknesses, with vilifications, with adversities, with persecutions, with troublemakers, because when I’m weak, I’m actually my strongest. This means that when he’s undergoing these persecutions, these afflictions, that he’s forced to live and depend on faith. I don’t ever get into denial. In denial, there’s neither perception or rejection of reality. It’s one of the two. You get this way because you’re in denial. You don’t see yourself as wrong in anything. And that’s a sign of arrogance. So here’s what you can expect. historical disasters coming or in some sort of national trauma, economic depression, tyranny from crime, malfunction of law enforcement, all of that we’re seeing. You can expect criminal disaster, murder, rape, robbery, burglary, victims of violence, terrorism, child abuse, kidnapping, even incest. You can expect to be a victim of malice and revenge and vituperation, rejection, injustice, various categories. You can expect to lose your health, to have disease, pain, suffering, terminal illnesses even. I mean, it is very legitimate to pray for illness and suffering of others. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s coming. You can expect to see death of friends and death of loved ones. You can expect to see weather-related disasters. And in your life, you can expect to be rejected, to be a victim of discrimination, the victim of violence or abuse or oppression. Maybe you’re passed over for promotion or loss of employment, a victim of unfairness, a victim of irrational antagonistic government bureaucracy, a victim of the meanness of some group in general. When all of this happens, when all of this is coming, all of these things I just described to you, you can do one or two things. You can react with loneliness and depression, or you can respond with faith and confidence in God. A mature believer will look for opportunities in adversity, not hide, not go get in the closet, close the door and cry. The other than mature believer, the less mature believer looks for pity. He looks for comfort from other people. The road to recovery demands a tremendous amount of consistent self-determination. You have to recognize your condition, and then you must assign number one priority to the Word of God, and that priority must stay in place no matter how bad things get in your life. If you will begin to study God’s Word on a daily basis, you can restore the balance to your soul’s mentality. You can do that with a Flatline podcast. You can listen to MP3s that I recommend, watch a DVD of a great pastor friend that I know. But if you will get into this daily, it’ll change your life because you will change the perspective in the way you handle circumstances. I talked to a friend this morning who called me and thanked me for introducing him to a tremendous way to study. I had told him that in a year from now, if you’ll get with it, you won’t recognize yourself. And he said, I’m already not recognizing myself. I used to get mad at the drop of a pen. I used to go off on temper tantrums. I’m not doing it anymore. That’s because he’s growing spiritually. Listen to the letter I got here. I wanted to drop a line and let you know that I enjoy listening and applying and growing from the Flatline. That’s our podcast. In fact, I believe listening to your podcast is an answer to a prayer. A few weeks ago, I prayed to our Heavenly Father to help me lose weight. Not for the purpose of vanity, but for my health so I could look better because it’s an added benefit. Lots of laughs. All of this may sound silly. On April the 23rd, last Monday, I got up and headed out to walk. And I remembered your podcast that’s on the cell phone. You can listen to it anyways. I started the dreaded walk through my neighborhood, listening to a lesson. And when the lesson ended 27, 28 minutes, I was not ready to stop listening. So I continued to walk. I returned home after walking for an hour and 15 minutes, and today was day eight. I walked an hour and 10 minutes listening to two of your lessons today, each day. I don’t like walking. I don’t love walking, but when I get up, I know I will be hitting the pavement just so I can listen to your lessons. When I was returning home today, it hit me. God has answered my prayer. I prayed a week ago. He answered it. I look forward to the next day to walk every time I return home. Thank you so much for your dedication of studying and putting together the things that you offer through Rick Hughes Ministries. What a great letter. This can be you. You can tap into our podcast venue. Go to Spotify or to Apple iPod. Just type in The Flot Line. The Flot Line. And it will pull up our podcast radio shows across with two circles. You’ll see it. And you can listen to one or two a day. I’ve shared this with thousands of people, my dentist, my doctor, the nurses, people that I meet here and there. Very few people really are willing to go study. We have a couple of hundred thousand people that have downloaded our messages, but that’s not the point. We’ve talked with thousands, and many, many, many people, maybe just like you, are just not willing to put in the time, just not willing to study. too busy too busy running here too busy running there and this is really what satan’s good at in the devil’s world distractions are a dime a dozen And so your kids can be a distraction, your hobbies can be a distraction, TV, sports, anything can be a distraction. But if you will make priority number one, learning God’s word on a daily basis, you will not recognize yourself in a couple of months because you will soon begin to change the way you think. And the Bible says, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. That’s what the problem is, we get into depression, we get into loneliness, it’s actually a way of Arrogance, it’s you being preoccupied with yourself. It’s you thinking about nobody but yourself. You have to move away from that and you have to get away from that sort of attitude. And you have to move into responding, not reacting, not rejecting, responding. Arrogance always looks at self. Arrogance looks in the mirror and thinks self is okay. Arrogance wants to blame everybody else. But it’s not everybody else’s fault. So if you’ve got some sort of loneliness going on in your life today, why? Why are you lonely? Do you have a personal sense of destiny? Yes. Have you accepted Christ as your Savior? Yes. Do you have the filling of the Holy Spirit through the rebound technique? Yes. Are you growing in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? No. No, you’re not. I mean, one lesson a Sunday is not getting it. Until you get to the place where you are hungry for knowledge, thirsty for information, can’t get enough of it, you gotta have it. That’s what you’re looking for. That’s the hunger you’re looking for. And you will change your priorities and you’ll quit looking at yourself. You’ll quit looking at the problem and you’ll look at the solution. But it won’t happen overnight, I told you that. It takes a while. It takes a while to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because you have to change the way you think. That’s why the Bible says, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. There is an approval rating, and that’s when you’re thinking divine viewpoint. When you’re applying divine viewpoint into your life, that’s an approval rating. But when you’re living by a human viewpoint and letting your emotions control your soul, then you are not growing spiritually. The result of that is looking inward, being preoccupied with self, getting into depression, getting into loneliness, getting into woe is me, let’s have a pity party because nobody understands what I’m really going through when all along you’re not the first one nothing strange has happened to you hadn’t happened before according to the bible it’s happened to a lot of people but some people handle it better than you do can you get over that yes if you want to can you determine to be the person God wants you to be yes if you want to But it’s not gonna happen overnight. You’re gonna have to rebound, confess your sin to God, get into the Word, stay filled with the Holy Spirit, and start growing. I’d suggest you get ahold of our book, The Understanding Your Soul. It’s a free book we’ll be glad to send to you. Understanding Your Soul, just write to us. Tell us you want the book. We’ll get it out. And I suggest you get to our podcast, either on Spotify or Apple iPod, and start listening to one or two a day, you will change. Your attitude will change. Your mindset will change. You will be a different person in a few months as you grow. You don’t have to live under loneliness. You don’t have to live in depression. there is a better way to live and it’s the christian life it’s having that flat line in your soul having that main line of resistance inside of you that stops the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside sources of stress that’s why we say adversity is inevitable but stress is optional so you heard me tell you god gave you two ends one you can sit on watch a little tv not pay any attention to what’s going on, and one you can think with. Get your thoughts together. Learn to think as he thought. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. You think he could have been lonely? He was rejected, cursed, spit upon. You think he could have felt depressed, but he did not. He did not because he loved his father and he knew what his father’s plan was. He handled it, you can handle it. Yes, he used the same problem solving devices you have. They were his and he passed them on to you. If you learn them and use them, you will never be the same person again. You don’t have to live with loneliness. You don’t have to live with depression. You don’t have to live with thoughts of ending it at all. There’s a hope. There’s a greater trajectory for you. That’s your personal sense of destiny. So until next week, I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. Order the book, Understanding Your Soul, if you want it. Until then, this is Rick Hughes saying thank you so much for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
