Talking to Yourself

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. PSALM 42:11

Of everything Lloyd-Jones taught about spiritual depression, one counsel has travelled furthest. It comes from the opening sermon of Spiritual Depression, and it is drawn from the psalm he took as his text. He is remembered above all for the insistence that the troubled Christian must learn to stop listening to himself and start talking to himself. Put so briefly, it can sound like a slogan. As he developed it, it is one of the most practical pieces of spiritual counsel of the twentieth century.

The psalmist’s method

He began by noticing what the psalmist actually does. The man is in trouble. He is far from the house of God, taunted by enemies, overwhelmed by sorrow, his tears his meat day and night. And in the middle of this he does something unexpected. He turns and addresses himself. Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? PSALM 42:3

The psalmist, Lloyd-Jones observed in effect, does not simply let his soul talk to him. He talks to his soul. He does not allow his feelings to dictate to him; he takes them in hand. He questions them, rebukes them, and directs them to God. The refrain occurs three times across Psalms 42 and 43, and each time it is the same movement: from self-pity to self-examination to hope.

Listening to yourself

The trouble with most of us, Lloyd-Jones argued, is that we listen to ourselves. We wake in the morning, and before we have done anything our thoughts begin to speak. They remind us of yesterday’s failures and today’s difficulties. They tell us that we are tired, that nothing will go right, that God has forgotten us. And we listen. We accept what they say as if it were the truth, and we allow them to set the tone of the whole day.

He did not think this was harmless. Much of the unhappiness of Christian people, he believed, comes from this passive surrender to their own moods. The self that speaks to us in this way is not a neutral reporter. It is fallen, it is affected by the body and by circumstance, and it is liable to be exploited by the devil. To listen to it uncritically is to hand the government of our lives to our weakest part.

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. PROVERBS 4:23

Talking to yourself

The remedy is to reverse the process. Instead of letting the self talk to us, we must talk to the self. Lloyd-Jones described this as a deliberate act of the mind and will. The Christian must take himself in hand, address himself as the psalmist did, and ask: Why are you cast down? What reason do you have? And then he must preach to himself.

What does he preach? He reminds himself of God: who God is, what He has done, what He has promised. He reminds himself of what he is in Christ. He recites the facts of the gospel, against which the feelings of the moment have no standing. And he commands his soul: hope thou in God.

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. LAMENTATIONS 3:21–22

Notice the phrase recall to my mind. Jeremiah, in the depths of his lamentation, does not wait for his feelings to change. He deliberately brings something to mind, and hope follows. That is the method exactly.

Not self-help

It would be easy to mistake this for a technique of positive thinking, and Lloyd-Jones was careful to distinguish it. The Christian is not simply telling himself that things will be better, or repeating comforting phrases. He is reminding himself of objective truth — of God and His Word — and bringing his mind into line with it. The power lies not in the talking but in the truth that is spoken. Without the facts of the gospel, talking to oneself is merely whistling in the dark.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. ISAIAH 26:3

Nor did he think it was easy. It requires discipline, and the discipline must be practised before the crisis comes. The Christian who has stored his mind with Scripture will have something to say to himself when the dark day arrives. The one who has not will have only his feelings.

The place of the mind

This counsel grows directly out of one of Lloyd-Jones’s deepest convictions: that the Christian life engages the whole person, and that the mind has a leading place. God speaks to us through truth, and truth is received first by the understanding. He was suspicious of any form of Christianity that bypassed the mind and appealed directly to the emotions or the will. Emotions stirred without truth soon fade. The will pressed without truth soon breaks. But truth understood and believed warms the heart and moves the will.

Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. ROMANS 12:2

This is why he was so often called a preacher to the mind, though that description is incomplete. He addressed the mind because he believed that is the door through which God ordinarily comes to the heart.

Where care is needed

There is a danger that this counsel, applied without wisdom, becomes another burden: the depressed person, already struggling, is told that the problem is simply that he has not talked to himself properly. Lloyd-Jones did not intend it that way. As the previous chapter showed, he took the physical and temperamental causes of depression seriously, and knew that some conditions need a doctor. Talking to yourself is a medicine for the soul; it does not replace medicine for the body. It is also best practised in company. The psalmist spoke to himself, but he also longed for the house of God and the voice of joy among the multitude. The Christian who is cast down needs both his own preaching and the fellowship of the church.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Notice what your thoughts say to you in the first ten minutes of tomorrow. Write it down.

2. Then answer it. Speak to your soul as the psalmist did, with specific truths from Scripture.

3. Choose three passages of Scripture to learn by heart this month, so that you have something to say to yourself on a dark day.

4. Read Psalms 42 and 43 aloud, and notice the movement of the refrain each time it comes.

5. If you know someone who is cast down, do not only listen to them; gently remind them of what God has said.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have listened to myself too long. I have let my moods and fears speak, and I have believed them.

Teach me to take myself in hand, to question my soul, and to preach Your truth to my own heart.

Stay my mind on You, and keep me in perfect peace. Let me recall Your mercies, and so have hope.

And when I cannot speak to myself, send me brothers and sisters who will speak Your Word to me. Amen.