“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”- Psalm 42:5
Toward the end of Chapter 14 of Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Timothy Keller states that them most basic way to face suffering is to pray when we are dry and read the Scriptures, even if doing so seems torturous. The darkness won’t last forever- we will sense God again. The strength we need for suffering comes from fulfilling the responsibilities and duties God requires.
Pastor Keller then references Psalm 42, where the psalmist addresses himself and not only listens to his own heart, but also talks to it. In a sermon on this psalm, D. M. Lloyd-Jones describes an important strategy we must use when we are discouraged:
“The first thing we must learn is what the Psalmist learned- we must learn to take ourselves in hand. . . . We must talk to ourselves, instead of allowing “ourselves” to talk to us. In spiritual depression we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. . . . Then you must go on to remind yourself of who God is, and what God has done and what God has pledged himself to do. . . . Then end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with the man, ‘I shall yet praise Him . . . for he is my God.”
Today’s question: As you journey toward healing and transformation, are you talking to your self or is your self talking to you? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Walking the path of suffering”