How did the psalmists maintain their hope and joy even while being honest and realistic about their troubles? Their secret had to do with prayer and self-talk–what they said to themselves and what they said to God.

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Your Troubles Aren’t Causing Your Anxiety

If you ask the average person to make a list of the causes of stress in his life, it will most likely be a list of common troubles such as relationship problems, health issues, workload, or finances. But none of those are causes.

Nothing that happens to you causes anxiety. Events may trigger it, but all anxiety originates within you. We speak of stressful circumstances, but is that an accurate way of speaking? There are hard circumstances and easy circumstances, but no circumstance contains anxiety within it, which is why the same circumstance can result in anxiety for some people but not others.

In the greatest instruction ever written on dealing with worry (Matthew 6:25–34), Jesus said nothing about manipulating circumstances or avoiding trouble. It is all about the heart. This is why Jesus can tell us not to have anxiety, even though we can’t control what happens to us. Stress-free suffering is possible.

When trouble hits, it will fire up your anxiety or it will strengthen your faith and draw you close to God, depending on what you say to yourself and what you say to God.

You talk to yourself all day every day. And if you’re a believer, you speak to God many times a day. Our natural impulse with self-talk is to grumble to ourselves about our troubles, as if we needed a reminder of how many things are going wrong. No solutions, nothing constructive, only an ongoing rehearsing of all our problems.

The psalmists directed their talk about their troubles to God, and spoke to their own hearts about God.

Speaking to God:

“My bones burn like glowing embers. My heart is blighted and withered like grass… I lie awake… my enemies taunt me” (Psalm 102:3–8).

Speaking to Self:

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God” (Psalm 43:5).

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives … and heals … who redeems … and crowns … who satisfies.” (Psalm 103:2–5).

Never talk to yourself about your troubles. Talk to God about your troubles and talk to yourself about God.

The Importance of Self-Talk

There is a reason God included examples of self-talk in the inspired book of prayer (Psalms). Most of us underestimate the impact of what we say to ourselves.

In the words of biblical counselor and author Paul Tripp, “No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do. You’re in an unending conversation with yourself … interpreting, organizing, and analyzing what’s going on inside you and around you.”[1]

Self-talk is one of the primary ways your brain wires itself. What you say to yourself generates neural networks and builds the physical structure of your brain. Those networks solidify your beliefs and steer the direction of your life.

So given how much is at stake, it’s worth asking, “How healthy is my self-talk?” Tripp goes on:

What do you regularly tell yourself about yourself, God, and your circumstances? Do your words to you inspire faith, hope, and courage? Or do they stimulate doubt, discouragement, and fear? … How wholesome, faith-driven, and Christ-centered is the conversation that you have with you every day?[2]

We would do well to take those words to heart, because the Holy Spirit is working to bring peace, joy, and hope into your heart (Romans 15:13). Pouring any unnecessary cold water on your peace and joy with your self-talk vandalizes the Spirit’s work.

What do you say to yourself when you do something dumb? When someone in your family hurts you? When your boss is unfair? When you suffer a loss? Get sick? Fail at something? Do you say things that fortify your faith? Do you affirm biblical truths? Or do you stoke the fires of anxiety?

Positive Thinking?

Authors like Norman Vincent Peale and Tony Robbins sold millions of books about the power of positive thinking. But in the late 1990s, researchers began pointing out flaws in the positive psychology approach. The data showed that being artificially positive does more harm than good.[3] The term “toxic positivity” emerged. In some contexts, negative thoughts serve you better than positive ones.

Again—science catching up to Scripture:

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1; 4).

“Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day … is one who sings songs to a heavy heart” (Proverbs 25:20).

Trying to cheer up a heavy heart is like taking away warm clothing on a cold day. Sometimes sadness and negative thoughts can be like a warm blanket you wrap up in for a time to nurse your wounds. Have you ever been upset and someone tried to get a smile out of you by telling jokes or tickling you? Not helpful.

There will be a time to set aside that blanket and face life again, but that doesn’t happen through artificial positivity. It comes through hope. The sad, worried, or anxious person doesn’t need a pep talk. But he does need words of hope. Especially when the person you’re talking to is … you.

“Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad” (Ecclesiastes 7:3, ESV).

Many times, in order to get to a glad heart you have to pass through a valley of sadness. The deepest joy only comes on the back side of sorrow. There are attributes of God and encounters with his presence that can only be experienced in times of pain.

Biblical self-talk is not always positive. Negative thoughts and emotions have their place. Let them run unchecked, and they can kill you. But they can also be a warm blanket in a frigid storm. Phony, unrealistic positivism is superficial and ultimately disappoints. Even Jesus wept (John 11:35).

God doesn’t want us to ignore reality. We must face our troubles. But there is a way to do it that will drag you down into despair and a way that will keep your joy intact.

Again, our guide is the Psalms. Did the psalmists talk about their troubles? Did they ever! Many times, in the darkest, most graphic detail. Yet, so often they were full of hope because of how they used self-talk.

Don’t Talk to Yourself about Your Troubles

The wrong kind of self-talk is also the most natural—talking to yourself about your troubles in ways that destroy faith, hope, and joy.

Something in us wants to grumble when things go wrong. And for our complaining to be justified, our troubles have to be big. So we exaggerate them in our own minds.

Have you ever noticed how when something goes wrong, your mind immediately tries to connect it with something else that went wrong? You misplace your keys, that makes you late for work, and you think, That dumb barking dog woke me up early, I’m dead tired, my knee is acting up, my toast burnt, and now I’m late. This is shaping up to be some day.

What value is there in amassing evidence that you’re having a hard day? None. It just makes you miserable. But that’s what happens when you talk to yourself about your troubles. The inner dialogue tends to snowball into catastrophism, self-pity, discontent, envy, ingratitude, and a host of other soul-destroying, hope-killing, anxiety-producing attitudes.

Talk to God About Your Troubles

Should you just put negative thoughts out of your mind, then? No. Face reality and work through it. Go ahead and talk about your troubles. Just talk to God about them, not to yourself. It changes what you say.

People often say it’s unhealthy to bottle up your negative emotions. Instead, you should “vent” them. But emotions are not a gas that will dissipate if you simply let them out. Expressing them usually only intensifies them. Emotions are your soul’s response to what it thinks is happening in line with your beliefs and values. They can’t be vented or bottled up. But they can be expressed to God. Don’t suppress or vent your feelings—pray them.

One cause of runaway anxiety is irrational thinking—exaggerating the problems, assuming the worst outcome, unfounded pessimism, mistaking your feelings for reality, etc. Anxiety gets out of control when those irrational thoughts go unchallenged. Talking to God about your problems tethers you to reality.

Prevents Exaggeration

When you talk to yourself, you tend to overstate how bad things are. But it’s hard to exaggerate when you’re talking to God and know he saw the whole thing. As soon as an untrue thought arises, you won’t want to say it to God.

Keeps Perspective

When you talk to yourself, it’s easy to get lost in your own little world. But when you talk to God, it puts your problem against the backdrop of the spiritual realm, and you see it in context.

“God, this problem is the biggest issue in the world! … Oh, except for your kingdom … and the work of the gospel … and spiritual warfare and eternal life and heaven and hell. I guess this problem isn’t as big as I thought.”

Prevents Giving Up

When you talk to yourself, your problems seem hopeless. But not when you talk to God. You can’t very well tell him, “Not even you can handle this one, God. There’s no solution.”

Talk to Yourself About God

Talking to God about your troubles protects you from all the cognitive distortions that anxiety typically causes. You’ll stop vandalizing your peace, joy, and hope.

But that’s only half the battle. The next step is to increase your peace, joy, and hope. That’s where the good kind of self-talk comes in. Talk to yourself about God.

When you isolate an anxiety and bring it before the Lord, ask yourself, “What are two or three truths about God’s nature that are relevant to this problem?” Then use your imagination to contemplate those attributes. This will shift your attention from your problem to your Father.

Shift from Inward to Upward

The instruction manual for how to pray in times of stress (Psalms) teaches us to shift from inward thinking to upward thinking. No book of the Bible speaks more about human pain than Psalms. And no book is more densely packed with statements about what God is like. That’s not a coincidence.

Pick any psalm and list every truth about God stated or implied. You’ll rarely have less than ten and often more than twenty. Now compare that to your own prayers. How many attributes of God do you mention in a typical prayer? No wonder the psalmists were so full of hope.

It’s good to talk to God about your problems but never without giving yourself plenty of reminders about what God is like. Talking to God about your problems without talking to yourself about God will only intensify your anxiety.

The author of Psalm 103 gives a clinic on how to talk to yourself about God. He says:

“Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name” (verse 1).

No matter what kind of self-talk is creating anxiety, if you shift from that to praising God, it will shut off the spigot of stress hormones in your nervous system.

“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (verse 2).

The psalmist doesn’t leave it at that general statement. He reminds his soul of several specific benefits:

 

• To quiet the self-condemning voice in his head, the psalmist points out this attribute of God:

“who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (verse 3).

 

• When you have thoughts that your life is hopelessly ruined, how about this attribute?

“who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion” (verse 4).

 

• Afraid you won’t be happy because of what’s happened or what might happen?

“who satisfies your desires with good things” (verse 5).

 

• Thoughts that your best days are behind you?

“so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (verse 5).

 

• Thoughts about how life is unfair?

“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (verse 6).

 

• Thoughts about God being mad at you?

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (verses 8–14).

Use Your Imagination

When you speak to your soul about God like this, don’t forget to utilize the gift of imagination God gave you. Imagine yourself having an experience of his attributes that fills you with peace. Imagining that will create neural pathways that will make those responses easier when you experience the attributes you considered. The more vivid your imagination, and the more frequently you do it, the stronger the neural connections.

Don’t just say, “God forgives sins” as a bare fact. Imagine yourself in despair under crushing guilt and then feeling forgiven, clean, and fully assured that everything is now okay between you and God. Imagine it until you feel it.

Then the next one. Imagine yourself feeling like you’ve ruined your life beyond repair. Then envision God lifting you from that pit and restoring your life better than it was before. Don’t stop until your soul and nervous system activate the emotions you would feel.

Keep going through the list. That’s how you talk to your soul about God. The stronger the anxiety, the more of God’s glory your soul needs to see. It’s great to affirm that “God is good all the time.” But don’t be satisfied with just one attribute.

Focusing on God’s attributes is so important, I have written an entire volume titled Peace through Faith exploring six crucial attributes of God for addressing anxiety and how to increase your faith in them. It is the sequel to this book.

Hard Work

None of this will be easy. Anxiety is a mental wrestling match.

“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?”[4] (Psalm 13:2).

As miserable as anxiety is, something in us wants to hold on to it and resists peace-inspiring thinking. Your anxious soul insists, “I have the right to feel this way!” But when you finally let go of the anxiety, look at the result:

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me” (Psalm 13:5–6).

Has Your Counselor Perished?

Your problems are real. And they may be huge, but they are not the whole story. The psalmist said, “My soul is downcast within me, therefore I will remember you” (Psalm 42:6). If you haven’t thought about God’s relationship to your problem, you haven’t really thought about your problem.

“Why do you now cry aloud—have you no king? Has your ruler perished, that pain seizes you like that of a woman in labor?” (Micah 4:9).

What would it do to your perspective if you caught yourself during out-of-control anxiety and asked, “What’s the matter, soul? Has your Savior died?”

Inspiring Hope

The author of Psalms 42 and 43 wrote in a state of severe anxiety. Three times he states that his soul is “in turmoil.” The Hebrew word (hamah) is used of snarling dogs and the roiling, foaming tumult of a stormy sea.

Each of the three times he uses that word, he directs his soul to hope in God (Psalm 42:6; 12; 43:5).

You can’t reason with your nervous system. It doesn’t work to tell yourself, “Stop being so stressed. This shouldn’t bother you so much. Just chill.” What does work is to tell yourself truths that inspire hope and joy. The goal is not positive thinking. The goal is inspirational thinking—thinking that sets your soul on a track that leads to hope.

You know what kinds of thoughts trigger anxiety:

• This will probably be a disaster.
• I’m such an idiot.
• This situation is hopeless.
• What’s wrong with me?
• Everything’s going wrong today.
• My life is a dumpster fire.

 

Those thoughts are like hitting your head against the wall. Keep doing it, and eventually you’ll get brain damage. Speaking to yourself that way does long-term soul damage. It weakens your ability to trust God.

This is the case with most sins we struggle with. If you have a temper problem, chances are your inner monologue is dominated by angry thoughts. The same is true for greed, vengeance/unforgiveness, lust, sadness, or people-pleasing. Each unchecked thought in one of those categories pushes you further in that direction.

Hope-inspiring self-talk has the opposite effect:

• “His mercies are new every morning.”
• “You have laid your hand upon me.”
• “God’s grace will be sufficient for me.”
• “If God didn’t withhold his own Son from me, surely he’ll help me with this.”

 

Each time you have thoughts like that, you strengthen your spirit and prepare it for joy. That’s the sort of thing the writer of Psalms 42 and 43 was talking about when he told his soul, “Put your hope in God.”

Hope in God

Are you stressed about an upcoming event? Maybe a visit to family or a hard meeting at work? Something coming up that has your stomach in knots? Anxiety is telling you, “Something bad is about to happen.”

But if you’re a believer, you can counter, “Something good is about to happen to me.” And that’s not wishful thinking. For the child of God, it’s always true, because:

“His compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

From a Bad Day to Loving God

Remember the day that started with a bad night’s sleep, a sore knee, and burnt toast? How would you apply these principles on a morning like that?

First, resist the impulse to connect your problems together. Keep them separate, and deal with them one at a time.

I’m late for work, and my knee is … wait a minute. Being late and my bum knee have nothing to do with each other. Separate problems with separate solutions—no reason to run them together.

Even if the problems are related, they might have different solutions. If you combine different problems with different solutions together, then they have no solution.

For each hardship, pinpoint the core problem, talk to God about it, tell him how you feel, and then make a specific request.

“Father, I’m late for work. I’m worried about what my boss will say. My request is that you would prepare me for the difficulties I’ll face when I show up late.”

Then you talk to your soul about how God is close by when his people face trouble and that he controls whether you have favor in the eyes of men. Pray as long and as earnestly as you must to spend the energy of your anxiety.

Now you’ve worked through it, made your request, and you turned your attention to what God is like. Remind yourself that the ball is in God’s court. At least for now, the issue is resolved on your end. No need for your brain to hold you in a state of anxiety over it.

On to the next issue—lack of sleep. Speak to your soul. “Soul, consider these truths about God:

• God can supply all the strength I need regardless of little sleep.
• He intentionally allowed me to be tired today for his purposes.
• His purposes are always good for me.
• He’s worthy of my wholehearted service even when it’s hard.
• He’s full of compassion. He’s the only one who understands how hard this is for me today, and he cares.”

 

Now talk to God about it, and make your specific requests.

“Father, thank you for promising the grace to go through this day tired. I look forward to receiving that grace. My request is that you enable me to be receptive to it and to enjoy you through it.”

Fatigue problem addressed. It’s off your plate.

Next issue—the toast. Imagine God saying, “What do you want me to do about the toast problem, specifically?” You chuckle and realize that one’s not quite the catastrophe it felt like. You realize it’s a nonissue, and there’s no need to give it another moment’s thought. “Never mind about that one, God.”

It sounds silly, but this is important. If you don’t go through this process, it stays in the back of your mind as part of your conglomeration of problems. Every item in your list must be handled.

Can you see the difference this will make for your anxiety?

 

BEFORE:

Lingering pressure of having a terrible day where “everything” is going wrong with no possible solution.

 

AFTER:

You had three issues that have been dealt with, and now you love the Lord a little more than you did yesterday. No need for anxiety.

 

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Godliness Training Exercises

• Speak to God in the style of Psalm 102 and to yourself in the style of Psalm 103 about three anxieties. If your thoughts are running away with you and you can’t get them to stop, try thinking of one attribute of God for each letter of the alphabet. And after each letter, stop and thank God for being that way toward you.

 

If you’re not sure which attributes of God are relevant for your situation, ask friends for help.

 

Make a goal of speaking truth to yourself about God as an automatic, habitual response whenever anxiety hits.

 

• Choose a psalm at random, and list every attribute of God stated or implied. Use your imagination to daydream about experiencing several of those attributes.

 

• Imagine yourself feeling intense joy, hope, or peace in that experience.

 

• Keep reviewing the verses you have memorized so far, and add Matthew 6:28–29.

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Links

For the video of this session, click here.

• Part 1 of this series
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

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Footnotes

[1] https://www.paultripp.com/wednesdays-word/posts/talking-to-yourself.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Wood JV, Perunovic WQ, Lee JW. Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others. Psychol Sci. 2009 Jul;20(7):860–6. doi: 10.1111/j.1467–9280.2009.02370.x. Epub 2009 May 21. PMID: 19493324.

[4] Literally, “How long must I set counsel in my soul?”