Talking to myself

Who is he talking to? It sounds like he is talking to himself!

Psalm 103, starts off with a short phrase that is often repeated in other Psalms: ‘Praise the Lord, my soul.’ The author says it again in verse 2, ‘Praise the Lord, my soul.’ And again, at the end of the psalm.

King David, who wrote these words, also wrote Psalm 57 and there is similar language here: ‘Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn’ (57: 8). David is telling himself to wake up and give glory to God.

He’s talking to himself.

My wife and I were chatting one time about how different people are and how those differences can often boil down to personality type – just one way that God has made each of us unique. However, we are also part of a fallen human race and in the process of being renewed. Not everything that makes me, me is necessarily as God intended. We all have a mixture of positive attributes in our personalities and negative ones that are yet to be made transformed.

For example, some of us will naturally have a more positive outlook than others. Others, not so. My personality type is melancholic which, according to some studies describes someone who is analytical (yep, that’s true), task orientated (tick), self-motivated (yes), a perfectionist (oh dear), but can be quite shy and ‘deep’; and with a tendency to want to hide away occasionally. Actually, for some, discouragement, even depression is part of the story and can hit hard. But, hey, us melancholics can be really creative!

Without Christ, I would quite easily see the negative in most situations, but when I read the Bible, I don’t think I am alone. Look at the way David expresses himself in Psalm 13:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart” (Psalm 13: 1 – 2)

When we read David’s soul-bearing poetry, some of it makes me wonder if he might have been a melancholic too. We don’t know of course but, if that is true, then he has got something important to say in this space: talk to yourself! When discouragement sets in, when there’s sorrow in your heart, speak to your soul!

Our souls are fragile. We were once spiritually dead in our sins, but through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection we have been ‘made alive’ (Eph 2: 1, 5). Now we are on the path of transformation, but we are still subject to temptation, discouragement, and spiritual attack.

For every Christian, there are times when we are tempted to dwell on the negative – and every personality type has a bad day. Perhaps those are the moments God would have us look in the mirror and talk to our inner selves: “Awake! Come on! Today is a new day and we are going to praise God and trust him!”

This devotion is one of many you can find in my book Bite-size Devotions for the Busy Christian, published by Kharis Publishing and available through any Amazon website.