(This is a second attempt to write on this subject, with some areas repeated and some new ones added.)

So, you’re headed down to the Crescent City? Good. We’ll be glad to welcome you.

What, you wonder, should you see?

All you know about New Orleans is the French Quarter, and you’re not sure you want to venture there. Perhaps you are staying downtown, near Canal Street, the main boulevard that dissects this city and splits the French Quarter (on the downriver side) from the CBD (Central Business District) on the upriver side. Bear in mind that terms like north and south or east and west can be confusing here since the river takes some nasty turns right where this city was located. We still call the downtown area (including Metairie and Kenner) “The East Bank” and when you cross the river going south “The West Bank,” even though it’s all north and south.

I’ve lived here a total of 25 years, and do not begin to be an authority on the city, its cuisine, history, culture, people, or anything else. However, I love the city and treasure its people. That, I might add, took some doing and also took a few years.

All right. That said, here are Places You Must See in New Orleans.

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I love to suggest Psalm 92:12-15 to senior saints. I tell them it’s easy to remember that psalm. After all, if you’re 92, you’re old!

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree;

He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

It took me a while to get this figured out, but over the years, eventually this pastor began to notice something quite remarkable the living God does in people’s lives: the longer they serve Him, the more like Christ they become.

It’s enough to make us conclude that the process does not end with death, but continues right on into the next life where what the Bible calls “glorification”–the process of becoming Christlike–is fulfilled and completed.

From this passage (a remarkable four verses, don’t you think?), here is a four-fold description of God’s people who have walked faithfully with Him through the years.

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…and in His law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:2)

The best thing that ever happened to my Bible study was that I decided to start thinking about it.

That might require a little explanation.

Scripture says people who hear the word but do not act on it are like a fellow looking in a mirror, then walking away and forgetting what he has seen (James 1:24).

That’s pretty close to the way I was for a long time. I would read a Bible passage and study it, but make no effort to take it with me when finished. One day I began memorizing Scripture in order to reflect on it while walking or driving or lying awake at night.

That began to make a great difference.

The Word of God does not yield its richest fruits to the casual, occasional visitor to the orchard, but only to those who come regularly and practice patience and diligence.

This, I suspect, is a major failure of many who teach and preach the Word, but who confine their inquiries to the study room. Then they wonder why others find more in passages than they.

“These words I command you today shall be in your heart. And you shall…talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

The best kind of Bible study may well take place while you are stopped at a traffic light, lying awake in the middle of the night thinking, sitting at the breakfast table with your newspaper or chatting with your spouse. Because a passage of God’s Word has been near the forefront of your mind (as opposed to filed away in the back somewhere), your subconscious works on it, your active mind begins to see parallels in everyday life, and something your wife said speaks to it.

It’s a wonderful thing.

Here’s an example.

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There was a time I had the answer to everyone’s depression.

“You’re down in the dumps? Your spirit is so low you wish you were dead? The answer is simple. Just memorize scripture and quote it to yourself.”

The simplest response to that is that it was well-meaning but truly stupid. A dead giveaway that I’d never been depressed.

The day came when I was depressed–by then I had logged more than four decades on Planet Earth and thought I was home free; bad mistake–and found just how ineffective and even insulting my little home remedy could be to those in its death-grip.

In my defense, I did not think that up by myself. Somewhere along the way, someone smarter than me–there are so many of those!–had said it, and it sounded logical. (My one wish is that all to whom I spouted that well-meaning nonsense have forgiven me and forgotten it.)

The Bible has great powers, and Scripture can do many things. In some cases, no doubt, memorizing or quoting or meditating upon God’s Word does indeed banish the “blues.” But to make it a panacea, a cure-all, for all kinds of depressions is not wise.

So, where is wisdom concerning depression? Herewith my little contribution to the subject.

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