Self-talk

I hear people talking to themselves everywhere I go. Most are conversing with a Bluetooth or singing along with their playlist. At the rundown end of Fifth Street in Philadelphia, I heard a man carrying on a sustained and animated conversation to no visible recipient, replete with a fully developed narrative of protagonists and antagonists. I prayed for him and crossed the street.

Jesus is not averse to self-talk. He does not find it crazy unless the things you are filling your own ear with are crazy—like worldly songs that whittle away at the Spirit in you, or obsessive hypothetical future scenarios, or repetitive mental tapes of the ways your parents wrecked your life when you were young.

Everybody talks to himself, whether he knows it or not. Jesus tells us the story of a man who talked to himself:

“The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’” (Luke 12:16–19, ESV).

It ended badly for that man in Jesus’ story because the way he talked to himself was foolish and ignorant of God’s ways.

Another man who talked to himself was in big trouble and about to lose his livelihood:

“And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses” (Luke 16:3–4, ESV).

This man was no fantasizer. Crisis energized his mind and gave him an adrenaline rush of sobriety. He got practical about his next move. Jesus appreciated that because it is very like the way you and I should get practical about our actions if we want to gain heaven rather than hell.

Here is an even more excellent example of self-talk in the Bible:

“Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” (Psalm 42:5a, ESV)

The speaker of these words is in trouble, in personal agony. Here is the solution he arrives at and tells his soul, lest he be swept away on a current of despair:

“Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5b, ESV).

The Psalm is recorded as a model, for our imitation. Everybody talks to himself, whether he realizes it or not. Let us tune in to what we’re saying to ourselves, and start saying things that are true and helpful.

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