It's Okay, Everyone Talks to Themselves
“Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God!” Psalm 42:11
Have you ever been in a vigorous conversation with yourself when someone suddenly walked into the room? Maybe it was your little brother. Ugh. “Who are you talking to?” he mutters, condescendingly. “Uh, no one…I mean…I was just…never mind” you say, softly, as you turn a little red.
It’s okay, everyone talks to themselves. Some of us talk to ourselves out loud, others have extended conversations with themselves in the shower. Parents are usually the worst. When they get a few seconds alone in the car, they tell themselves all sorts of things.
Now, most of us probably don’t talk at a level where anyone can hear, but we are all telling ourselves something. You know the drill, right? Maybe you woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and thought, “Yuck.” Maybe you listened to a classmate eloquently answer a question and thought, “I’m so stupid.” Or maybe you looked at the girl sitting next to you and thought, “Well, at least I don’t wear THOSE shoes.”
Yeah, we all talk to ourselves. We all tell ourselves things about who we are and what’s important. We do it all day long. Consider yourself caught! But here’s the thing, talking to yourself isn’t necessarily bad, in fact it can be one of the best things you’ll do everyday. It all depends on what you are telling yourself.
There’s a scene in the Bible where Jesus is passing through a large crowd and there’s a woman in that crowd who had been sick for twelve years. She had a disease that made other people not want to be around her. I imagine that most days she said things to herself like, “I’m so gross…no one will ever love me,” or “I just wish I could be normal,” or “if I just try to look good on the outside, maybe no one will notice.”
But then she heard about Jesus. She heard he actually LIKES people who are sick, or not as pretty, or sad. So, that day she didn’t say to herself, “Well, you’re hopeless…you’re stuck in this miserable place,” instead she set all her hope on Jesus and said to herself, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And of course, she did touch his garment, and Jesus did notice her, and he loved her and made her well.
You see, Jesus basically told her the truth about herself: “You are beautiful, you belong to me, and only I can make you clean again!” I hope you start to recognize some of the lies that you speak to yourself on a daily basis, and begin to replace them with the truth that you find here about Jesus. I pray you’ll gradually replace seeing yourself through the eyes of the world, and start to see yourself through the eyes of Jesus, “who loved you and gave himself up for you.”
What are you saying to yourself today? Is it true? Jesus’ words to you are simple but incredibly profound: “I love you. You are mine. I cannot love you any more or less than I do right now.” How can that be true?
Additional Reading: Mark 5:28