Psalms 42:5-6 (NIV)
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and (6) my God.
I remember reading this years ago in D Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book “Spiritual Depression”:
"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.”"
How important it is for us to be “speaking truth” to ourselves – God’s truth. For only God’s trust settles down our hearts.
Consider another psalm:
Psalms 22:1-2 (NIV)
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.
David begins by expressing his frustration, feeling that God has forsaken him! Oh, don’t we feel that way also many times in our life? But he continues and says:
Psalms 22:3-5 (NIV)
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.
4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.
5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.
That was the truth that prevailed in his heart. No matter how forsaken he felt, he knew that God was enthroned as the Holy One, and history showed how He delivered his forefathers, and how they were not disappointed when they trusted in Him.
Then he goes at it again, and starts feeling bad, this time about himself:
Psalms 22:6-8 (NIV)
6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."
He was a worm, not a man. People mocked him, made fun even of his faith. But, again, the truth concerning God prevailed:
Psalms 22:9-10 (NIV)
9 Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.
10 From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God.
Even if he felt like a worm, God being His creator, and the One who safely and faithfully brought him out of his mother’s womb said otherwise. From birth he was in the arms of his Lord.
Eventually he concludes and says:
Psalms 22:11 (NIV)
11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
Are we speaking truth to ourselves? Do we take time to know more about the truth concerning our Lord and God? Only our knowledge of the truth, the truth about our God, can truly comfort our hearts.
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