Sometimes I get tired of trying to be positive. Sometimes it seems like some of my goals and dreams have been delayed so long that they are never going to happen. Occasionally I teeter on the brink of downright discouragement and I can't think of any reason not to dive into it.

Those are frightening moments. Throwing in the emotional towel and wallowing in self-pity is not really a very attractive option. But how do you move back from the abyss of depression when you are not even sure you want to? Here are a few ideas that have helped me turn my attitude around, even when I felt completely unmotivated.

1) Don't salt your wounds. You're hurting. But don't add to your pain by blaming yourself, your family and associates, or your fate. Drop the accusations. Put off the put-downs. Accept your struggle as normal. Simon Peter said: "Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as if something strange were happening to you." You are not in a unique situation. You are not weird. It is normal to have occasional struggles with despair. So be kind to yourself.

2) Change your focus. Stall your emotions by distracting yourself with a non-self-destructive activity. Do something that is not part of your daily routine. Go to a movie. Call someone you haven't talked to in ages. Play with a child. Go for a walk or a drive. Write something. Help somebody.

3) Use fear. Fear is a powerful motivator. Let the fear of even greater discouragement get hold of you. What if you completely give up? What if you become so depressed that you can't even function? Let fear motivate you to fight your discouragement.

4) Face reality. You are struggling. Admit it. However, be careful not to overstate the truth.
You may be depressed, but you are not worthless. You're discouraged, but you are not totally defeated. You're disappointed, but all is not lost. Some things are indeed bad, but some things in your life are still good. (You are still breathing.)

5) Ride out the storm. Everything changes. The circumstances you are depressed about today will eventually change, too. The tide will turn. The pain you are feeling will eventually ease.

6) Get help. Talk to a friend. Join a twelve step group. Call a crisis hot-line. Call a prayer line. Talk to God. Get professional help. got to a counselor, a pastor, a doctor, or a hospital. Always remember that you are you are too valuable as a human being to give up.

I love quotations. I have collected more than 20,000 quotations from hundreds of books that I have read. So when I am asked what is my favorite quotation, I have never known what to say. All 20,000+ have been my favorite.

The past few weeks, however, one quotation has been affectionately going through my mind over and over. That quotation has risen above the rest and I am ready to say that it is my favorite.

My favorite quotation is from Thomas Aquinas who lived in the 1200s. (I am writing this from memory.) Thomas was a brilliant intellectual, one of the great minds of his generation. He was also a Dominican monk and a writer. His goal was to explain everything. He, of course, wrote from a theological perspective. He called his main work (which consisted of many volumes) Summa Theologica, which means something like the sum (or total) of theology.

Thomas' approach to life and to theology was intellectual analysis. He believed that everything could be explained logically. His approach came to be known as scholasticism and has strongly influenced Western thought ever since then.

Toward the end of his life, Thomas Aquinas, went into a room to pray alone. When he exited the room he made the statement that is my favorite quotation. He said: "All I have written seems so much like dung compared to what has been revealed to me." He never wrote again after that experience. Thomas' supernatural revelation was so powerful that it surpassed a lifetime of intellectual pursuit.

Jesus Christ, Himself, endorsed the need and power of supernatural revelation. When Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus told him: "Flesh and blood hasn't revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven." Then Jesus said: "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build My church . . ." Genuine Christianity is built on the rock of personal revelation from God.

Supernatural revelation occurred to Peter in the First Century, to Thomas Aquinas in the Thirteenth Century, and to millions of other people in the past 2,000 years. In the light of personal revelation, mere academic approaches to theology are like studying ice cream without tasting and enjoying it. When you enjoy your favorite ice cream, you don't think about or analyze its molecular composition. You just savor the flavor.

Once Thomas Aquinas savored the flavor of his revelatory experience with Christ, all his intellectualism seemed inconsequencial -- "so much like dung" -- in comparison. Revelation rocks!

"The life of the exterior man is a life of automatism, of unconsciously directed thought and action, of mechanical conformity to the standards and prejudices of those around us." --Thomas Merton

"As long as we live in our exterior consciousness alone and identify ourselves completely with the superficial and transient side of our existence, the we are completely immersed in unreality." --Thomas Merton

"The sense of sin is a sense of evil in myself." --Thomas Merton

"Ours is an age of decadent religion. Our contemporaries, especially those who have gone in for popular religion, have often reduced faith to a comfortable assent to slogans without meaning." --Thomas Merton

"The worst errors can be taken for truth when a man has forgotten how to criticize the movements that arise in his heart." --Thomas Merton

"The tyranny of man over man is but the external expression of each man's enslavement to his own desires. For he who is the slave of his own desires necessarily exploits others in order to pay tribute to the tyrant within himself." --Thomas Merton

"Before there can be any external freedom, man must learn to find the way to freedom within himself." --Thomas Merton

Have you ever noticed that some questions are seldom, if ever, asked? Here is an example of an unasked question: Must a Sunday church service contain a sermon?

So why isn't that question asked? Perhaps it is because every Sunday church service that most of us have ever attended or heard about contained a sermon of some kind (even if it was called a homily, a devotion, a message, or preaching).

For hundreds of years, a sermon has been such a universal part of a Sunday church service that it is very difficult to imagine church without it. Denominations dogmatically disagree and display doctrinal diversity, but one thing that they almost all have in common is the Sunday sermon.

So back to the unasked question: Must a Sunday church service contain a sermon? If the authority for church is the Bible, then there is no sermon required. There is nothing in the Bible that either states or implies that any church meeting must have a sermon.

I have only found one place in Scripture that tells what to do when Christians meet. It reads: "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation." (NIV, I Corinthians 14:26) The idea here is not a message by one man that monopolizes the meeting, but rather open, Spirit-led participation by all. Biblically church should be structured more like a support group (or AA meeting) than a like a lecture hall.

I Corinthians 14:26 may be the most ignored verse in the New Testament. After years of studying church history, I have only found one group in history, besides the early church, that took this verse seriously. They called themselves Friends (even before facebook). Their detractors called them Quakers. Their Sunday meeting consisted of waiting in silence for the Holy Spirit to prompt people to sing, testify, read a Scripture, share an insight, or pray. They relied on open participation and had no professional clergy. There meetings were powerful, emotional, and life transforming. You can still feel the power of their worship when you read historical descriptions of their meetings.

The Quakers (beginning in the mid 1600s) proved that church meetings can be successfully held without sermons by following the Biblical instructions of I Corinthians 14:26. Yet their example was never embraced by other denominations.

For the past few years official church membership has been decreasing. Many people around the world have been leaving the institutional church. Some have abandoned their faith, however, many have begun gathering in interactive, small groups in homes and other places. This has become known as the House Church Movement. People are beginning to experience the amazing power of open, Spirit-led, participatory church. Sometimes the concept is called Simple Church and sometimes Organic Church.

All around the world people are discovering that setting aside the sermon and making church participatory produces dynamic spiritual life and power.

There is a billboard that reads: "Not Religious? You're not alone." That reminds me of a quotation by motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. He said: "I began to diet religiously. I stopped eating in church."

For many people the term "religious" has to do with attending church (even if you don't want to); adhering to a highly structured and controlled environment while pretending that you are not bored; not thinking for yourself; quenching your curiosity; keeping up churchy appearances; being less than completely honest; and passively listening to lackluster lectures. To disagree with those principles in a religious setting can make a person feel like she is alone.

Jesus, Himself, was non-religious and the most religious people of His day, the Pharisees, couldn't stand it. They led the movement to have Him killed.

The truth is that whether we are religious or not, we're not alone. There is Someone with us every moment of our lives. "He speaks and the sound of His voice, is so sweet the birds hush their singing."

God's still, small voice is softly speaking to us all -- beyond and independent of the reach of religion. He is active in our hearts. True spirituality is personal and intimate. It cannot be limited to or contained within or controlled by religion.