psalm 103 - talking to yourself about god - 2nd wk lent saturday

This is one psalm, psalm 103, where David is not talking to anybody in particular.  He is not exhorting people to join him in praising God.  No, he is not.  David is actually talking to himself.  He is telling himself, "Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name.  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

We are also doing this, talking to ourselves about people, about a situation and even like David, we talked to ourselves about God.  Probably this is what most of you have done today, talking to yourself about God, talking to yourself about your situation, about your stay here in this seminary.

It is said that “no one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.” (Paul Tripp) We often talk to ourselves and because we often talk to ourselves we influence ourselves more, we persuade ourselves more, we stimulate ourselves more, we motivate and change ourselves more than any other people can and are capable.  Why?  Because we talked to ourselves more often.  So, let us stop pretending blaming what other people made us do. 

In this psalm, psalm 103, David must have been filled with sorrow.  He must have been down and out, probably because of frustrations in his work, frustrations in himself, frustrations with the people around him.  And what did he do?  He talked himself out of his misery.  He talked himself out by telling himself, telling his soul to remember all the benefits God has bestowed on him since the beginning.  He wanted to remind his soul of what the Lord has done in his life, reminding his soul of God's surpassing kindness, his compassion and his love even though David was undeserving in all these because of his sins.

And so as we end the first day of our integration, we learn from psalm 103.  First we must be aware about what we talk to ourselves.  Because we often talk to ourselves we are most influential to ourselves, you can encourage yourself, you can change yourself, you can direct yourself to do what is best for you by talking to yourself. 

And second let us not just talk to ourselves about anything.  Let us talk to ourselves about God, convincing ourselves of the good he has done, talking ourselves out of discouragement and despair because of the help he can give, keeping ourselves firm amidst distractions and temptations by encouraging ourselves to hold on to God.  It is my hope that more often you talk to yourself about God.