Read: Psalm 42

Reflect:
Perhaps you have had a time when you were in such distress and anguish that you could say like the Psalmist in Psalm 42:3 “My tears have been my food day and night.” Sometimes these periods are brief but sometimes they can last a long time.  In Joseph’s life, it was “some time later” that the cup-bearer and chief baker arrived in prison with Joseph and then it says they remained in prison for “quite some time” and finally it was “two full years later” that Joseph was released from prison when Pharaoh had some dreams.  How does one find hope and courage when they are in a long season of disappointment or suffering?  Let’s see what we can learn from the Psalmist.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Welsh minister influential in the British evangelical movement offered some advice that I have found to be very helpful:  “Don’t listen to yourself.  Talk to yourself.”  When we talk to ourselves it tends to be bad news.  We dwell on the situation, the problems, the pain.  But notice what the Psalmist does – he starts talking to himself. “Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?”  His soul has been depressed and crushed and now he says to himself, “Self, listen to me, I am going to talk to you.”  What does the Psalmist say to himself?  He says, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” and “therefore I will remember you…” He is recalling who God is and what He has done.

What do we say to ourselves when we are in trouble or enduring suffering?  We remind ourselves of God’s truth – who He is, what He has done, what He has promised to do.  Perhaps our self-talk might go something like this:  “Listen, self!  You are a child of God! If God is for you, who can be against you?  He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for you, self, will he not with him freely give us all things? Who can separate you, self, from the love of God?  Jesus died for you, self, and He is at the right hand of God interceding for you.”

Notice these are just God’s truths found in Scripture (Romans 8).  This is what we need to fill our minds with and speak into our souls.

Pray:
Spend some time reminding yourself the truth of who God is, what He has done, who you are in Christ, and what God has promised He will do.