The Funk

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you arelistening 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 start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Your self is talking to you. Now (the Psalmist’s) treatment 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 a moment, I will speak to you.’

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, and question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’– what business have you to be disquieted?

You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God is, what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

                                      -Martyn-Lloyd Jones, Spiritual Depression, It's Causes And It's Cure

God's Redeeming Love

It is a marvelous, wonderful thing to contemplate, that God has come down in the flesh in order to rescue and redeem us, and opens his heart here to show us his wonderful concern for us and his amazing love with respect to us.
--Martyn-Lloyd Jones

Poor In Spirit

"Blessed are the poor in spirit...." Matthew 5:3

It means a complete absence of pride, a complete absence of self-assurance and self-reliance. It means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face to face with God. That is to be poor in spirit.

Martyn Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Talking To Yourself.

'Most unhappiness in life is due to the fact that we are listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves." (paraphrase D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones).

Sounds somewhat nonsensical?

Spiritual depression is influenced by our negative thoughts. These thoughts are spontaneous and often uninvited but are frequently entertained over and over again. They might be thoughts about our sinfulness or our lack of success and our failures. These negative thoughts render the Christian ineffective and unhappy. The Bible calls us to take ourselves in hand (as Lloyd-Jones puts it) and tell ourselves (talk to ourselves about) the truth of God's word. Preach the gospel every day to ourselves. The facts and promises God has given us. Imagine, we are seen as righteous in God's eyes because of Jesus. God loves us as sons and daughters and promises us an inheritance with him forever. He promises us good things! We do not have to do anything to earn our place. We are valuable the way we are because God created us this way and values us.

Our minds need to be continuously renewed by the word of God (Romans 12:2). Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) and set our minds on things above, not on earthly things (Colossians 3:2), not on ourselves but on God and his promises.

See Spiritual Depression, It's Causes and It's Cure by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.