SOUL TALK

Why are you so depressed, my soul? Why is there such inward distress?  Hope in God, for then you can praise Him.  He is the help of my being, and He is my God.

Psalm 43:5

     When I was a young child, I use to hear the old timers express, "You shouldn't talk to yourself because people will think you are crazy," and when I heard them say this, I would ask "Why?"  "Why is this so bad?"  Also, I wonder more today, "Who cares what people think about me?" Sadly, there were not too terribly many people around who cared what I was feeling about such matters.  So, as a young person, I don't think I learned very well how to process my emotions, which resulted in pent up emotions and a temperament that seemed to be tempered by me having a "temper." So I did not take a lot of time learning how be well in my soul.

     As I grew up and learned about self talk (soul talk,) I decided that avoiding talking to myself, in and of itself, was not really very healthy. The soul, according to the psalmist, seems to be the seat of our emotions.  This being true, when I take time out to think about how I am thinking about what I am thinking about, I gain the perspective of my feelings.  It is, additionally true that feelings tend to follow our thoughts and vice versa.  So, it really is valid to take time out to think about how I am feeling about what I am feeling about. This is precisely what the Psalmist is doing here in Psalm 43:5. The modern idea is that, "there is a thought for every feeling and a feeling for every thought." This ancient one validates this principle as He is talking to himself.  He is examining his soul. He is having a healthy self discussion about what's making him so depressed and distressed. 

     He discovered something very true that helped him cope with depression and distress.  He discovered he had stop focusing on finding his hope in the Lord.  So, he began to talk himself in to hope by thinking about what hope would look like.  In thinking more and more about what hope would look like (a place where he would praise God), he began to feel more hopeful.  His hope then turned into faith as he firmly experienced -- and stated -- that God was and IS his God. Needless to say, he felt better and stronger.

     In the book God's Psychiatry, the writer, who was also the Pastor of a the large Houston United Methodist Church, had a significant number of people who were depressed and seemed to feel hopeless.  They were not hopeless, but they thought they were and they felt they were. He did the soul talk by listening to them, and discovered they were feeling depressed because they were focused on everything but the God of all hope. So, as a result of listening to their souls, he came up with the same conclusion the Psalmist did in our passage.  They needed to hope in the Lord. He helped then to become redirected and re-focused them on helping the reflect on the God of hope.  He did this by having each one reflect on the 23rd Psalm when the woke up in the morning, at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Then they were to reflect on the 23rd Psalm prior to going to bed.  You can imagine what happened as each one took God's 23rd Psalm love letter to heart.  The depression and the distress lifted, as they became more hopeful in God.

     You see, these people, like the psalmist, were doing some unhealthy "soul talk."  They did not listen to what was going on inside.  Many of them called themselves "dummy" or "stupid" or other derogatory phrases, when they made human mistakes.  And they were not even aware of their self loathing thinking and feeling. So, continually talking to themselves like this, brought about depression and distress. When they heard themselves speak out loud the promises of the 23rd Psalm, as if those promises were tailor made for them, they came out of the "valley of the shadow."  They were able to have h-o-p-e. They were able to hold on to promises eternal. This resulted in genuine HOPE.

     So, why not do a little soul talk? Why not do it on purpose?  Why not take the time to process your feelings and thoughts. Pay attention to your inner life.  Let go and let God bring healing to you  as you intentionally talk to yourself.  I think you will be glad you did

SoJourner