Why are you cast down, O my inner self?
And why should you moan over me and be
disquieted within me?
Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him,
for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the help
of my [sad] countenance, and my God.
Psalm 42:5
I can’t help but be encouraged as I read this
Psalm. It is clear the author is going through
stuff. But even as he goes through the “stuff”
he does something interesting. He begins to
talk to himself…..I think that is very interesting.
He doesn’t tear himself down, curse himself,
focus on how miserable and pathetic he is…No!
He encourages himself!!!!
He talks to his soul – “Put your hope in God!
Wow…..
There is a lesson to learn here. How do we speak
to ourselves? Especially when things are going bad?
It’s so easy to encourage yourself, and speak good
when everything is going well but what happens
when things get crazy??
It is said that the average human has 50 000 thoughts
running through his mind on a daily basis…..that is a huge
amount of thoughts right. How much of those thoughts
are positive, encouraging and uplifting???
Look at another verse with me:
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from Him.
Psalm 62:5
What you say to yourself is very important.
Teach yourself to build yourself up.
Teach yourself to encourage yourself in the
Lord.
When everyone abandoned David, he encouraged
himself in the Lord! He didn’t beat himself up, or
tell himself how much of an idiot he was. He spoke
life over himself.
We need to speak to ourselves more often. We
need to speak more life. We need to speak the word
over ourselves. We need to encourage ourselves
to seek the Lord. We need to encourage ourselves
in the Lord.
Tearing yourself down doesn’t do you any good.
It actually makes things worse.
Think about something with me for a bit.
People trash talk themselves and tear themselves
down because they think they know who they are
right? There is no one who knows you better than
you. “I always forget things”, you say.
“That is exactly like me”
“I am so clumsy”
“I am horrible with faces”
But let me ask you something. Did you create
yourself? The answer would be no.
God is the One who created you and He is the
only One who knows who you really are. So why
do you speak to and about yourself like
you are the one who created yourself??? You
cannot trust your judgement about yourself.
We think we know ourselves but that is not true.
We may be way ahead than the closest people
in our lives but we still are not qualified to make
a final assessment about ourselves. We didn’t create
ourselves, God did. So before you tear yourself down
think about that. You don’t have all the information on
yourself so don’t be so quick to tell yourself who you
are. You are wonderfully and fearfully made….
Don’t forget that….
Rolain
I love this Psalm and always found it comforting and full of hope that disquieting times will change, My Lord will not abandon me.
You have shed a different light on it as a talk with myself about myself … and to trust in the Creator to pull me out of myself. Nice !!! 🙂
Nice play with words there….!!
There is a need to allow God to define who we are more and more…..and move away from what we think about ourselves!
Rolain
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Comforting and gives peace to the soul !
Thank you Himali…..
Rolain
Your insight is awesome. It is indeed of pivotal importance that we learn how to talk responsibly to ourselves when times are tough. We need to have a renewed mind.
Thank you Luna. I am surprised how hard it actually is. It seems there is a natural tendency to tear ourselves down but that can be changed. As we deliberately begin to speak well to ourselves, to speak life…
Thanks again.
Rolain
Needed this!