Not one thing is wasted.

Even a low-grade depression.

If you’re feeling burned out, helpless, frustrated, or just like you’re coasting, I want to reassure you: Not one thing is wasted. Let me explain why I can say that.

Do you ever have those nights where you’re just…annoyed? Where you know your attitude is poor, but you just can’t put your finger on it? You just want to be alone for the most part.

That was me last night.

I spent time working and praying through it this morning. I’ve learned that one of the greatest assets we have is being curious. So I got curious this morning. I wrote out what I thought might be nagging at me. What did I find?

The list is a lot bigger than I thought. Where did all this come from?

In fact, I was able to identify a low-grade depression in the background. It’s a different kind of depression than I’ve experienced before. It’s not the debilitating kind I’m used to—the kind that keeps me in bed all day or handcuffed from doing anything productive. I think that’s why it’s been harder to pick up on.

Instead, this is the type of depression that just slowly and consistently saps my energy. It keeps me from getting too excited. It makes me cynical. It puts me on edge. Last night my son was yelling at the TV and I came running out of the bedroom where I was reading: “Jack, what’s going on?!” He was yelling in excitement at a trick shot he saw from Dude Perfect.

I was prepared for battle. I went into fight or flight. “You don’t have to yell at me, daddy,” he said. I didn’t. But I did.

In some ways, that’s been the norm over the past…weeks? It’s like I’ve had a little leech attached to my mind, quietly and slowly sucking tiny bits of life out from me. Maybe that’s why I’ve gone to bed at 730p more times than I care to admit recently.

This is the part where I tell you exactly what I’m going to do to pull myself out of it, right? I explain the secret. The big, deep reveal.

Wrong.

Instead I’m going to tell you the simple, 8-word prayer I’ve started saying over and over and over again this past week. And what God told me in response this morning.

Here’s the prayer: