Self-Talk

Most of us enjoy conversations with friends. However, our most important conversations are those we hold with ourselves in the privacy of our own minds.

We have often been warned against pride. However, pride -- thinking too much of ourselves -- had its reverse. Thinking too little of ourselves spawns negative self-talk. What do we grouse about to ourselves?

About God. When life has gone awry, or has devolved into a tragedy, it is easy for us to think, "Well, God may love everyone else, but He doesn't love me." We tell ourselves, "He doesn't care what happens to me.

"Beware of allowing selfconsciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity," warns Oswald Chambers, (My Utmost for His Highest, Dodd, Mead and Co.:New York, 1935, Aug. 20th entry.) And the problem with pity parties is that no one comes -- not even God.

Feeling sorry for ourselves is common. We generate self-pity by continually brooding over the wrongs done to us.

Telling ourselves that God doesn't love us is an untruth. David speaks often about God's "unfailing love," (Psalm 31:16; 32:10; 33:5 & 18; 36:5 NIV). Jesus assured us of His love when He admonished His follwers to "Love each other as I have loved you," (John 15:12.) John, the Apostle also wrote: "This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins," (1John 4:10). So, telling ourselves that God doesn't love us is false. God does love us and cares what happens to us.

Rev. Benjamin Dagwell once prayed:

"Oh Lord,

Give me a mind that is not bored,

That does not whimper, whine or sigh.

Don't let me worry overmuch

About this fussy thing called I.

Give me a sense of humor, Lord,

Give me the grace to see a joke,

To get some happiness in life

And pass it on to other folk."

Committing ourselves into God's loving and faithful hand frees us from grousing and self-pity.

About others. We may control what we say about others, but we allow our minds to castigate others freely. We may think, "He doesn't really love me," or "She thinks I'm dumb. I can't do anything right where she's concerned." That may or may not be true. We can't know that for a fact unless we are told. Charles Swindoll said our attitude is more important than facts, the past, education, money, circumstances, failures or what other people think, say or do. We choose daily what our attitude will be. "Life," he wrote, "is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it," (Taken from quotelands.com).

About ourselves. We say, "I'm stupid. I can't do anything right. God couldn't love someone as dumb as me." Berating ourselves, since we are made in God's image, makes us critics of God. God designed every cell when He created us in our mothers' wombs, (Jeremiah 1:5; Psalm 139:13). He made each of us who we are and He will help us to grow into the character that pleases Him when we ask for His help and guidance.

The ten spies who entered Canaan were not defeated by the giants; it was their perception of the giants that terrified them. They told Joshua, " . . . we seemed like grasshopers," (Numbers 13:31-33). What they said to themselves about themselves demoralized them.

"The mind is its own place," John Milton said, "and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." Let's offer our self-talk to God. Only He can help us keep these most private conversations positive and pleasing to Him.