The other day, though I was feeling 80% "normal" physically, I was moping around the house mainly because I was thinking about the fact that I have to go back to get chemotherapy this next Monday and then I have to do it seven more times after that. My wife said to me, "You need to go read your blog." What my wife was observing is what the family members of every professing Christian knows, we don't live as well as we talk. Or, to say it another way, the members of our family know about us that we know how to live far better than we actually live.
However, there is something very true about the advice my wife gave to me. If we are going to make progress in the Christian life, if we are going to remain faithful to Christ through trials and temptation, we need to learn to talk to ourselves. In Psalm 42 the psalmist is discouraged. His soul, he says is "downcast within him". He longs for the "old days" when he was close to God and joined in the worship of God with the community of faith. But now he is far from God and from people and is very discouraged. His enemies taunt him, saying to him, "Where is your God?" Twice in the psalm he talks to himself. This is what he says (vv.5-6): "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you..."
He knows that he does not need to be discouraged because he will, one day praise and worship God again. He will be near to God again because God is his God and his salvation. So he asks himself, "Why are you downcast and in turmoil?" There is no need for discouragement. Yes things are tough now but his is not a permanent situation. This will end and I will be with God and will delight in him once again because he is the God who has saved me. I will once again join with all God's people in the fellowship of praise to God. Thus now I will hope in God, not in any human deliverance, not in my own goodness or strength, but in this God who is my salvation. Then he tells the Lord that he remembers him in the midst of his trouble. It is quite clear in the psalm that the trouble is not over, but it is by means of his talking to himself and remembering the Lord that he is able to persevere through the difficulty.
This is a very important practice for living the Christian life. We must learn to talk to ourselves, to remind ourselves of what God has done for us in Christ and what he is going to do for us in the future. As John Piper has said, we must preach the gospel to ourselves every day. By this we remember what is true for us and this strengthens us to persevere in the midst of the trouble. As Paul exhorts Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:8, "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel..." Thus my wife was correct in telling me to read my blog because as I do, I am talking to myself, reminding myself of God's promises and of the future that is mine in Christ and thus strengthening my resolve to hold fast to Christ and not be such a gloomy person.
1 comment:
Amen to this John, constant reminder of who is the Power and glory forever... To allow Him to renew us, to pray without ceasing, to be open to His leading and Grace...thankfully and continuously. I pray He gives you and I both that immense conviction of the things unseen escalating our trust into his Hands and nothing else. To rest in the saving grace of the word of the cross...
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