Depression, despair, discouragement, and diarrhea are part of my life periodically. You may be thinking, “why is diarrhea in the list?”, I needed another “D” word. OK you are right, it doesn’t fit, so depression, despair, and discouragement are periodically part of my life. They used to be regular visitors and they would often stay for a long time, but now they rarely show their faces and when they do they are run out of town quickly. WHY??

I have learned how to talk to myself so that the time I am down in the dumps is short. I preached, or taught in 10 different services or classes this last week, which is a lot and which consumes a lot of emotional energy from me usually resulting in what I call a “blue funk”. Knowing that this weeks ministry activities would likely end this way I talked myself out of it before it even got started.

Psalms 42:3 My tears have been my food day and night,

So the writer of this Psalm is in despair, sad, and crying about life, but then he does something very interesting, he lectures himself

Psalms 42:5 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence.

And again he goes into depression and says,

Psalms 42:6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;

And again he talks himself out of his feeling of despair,

Psalms 42:11 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.

Over the last 10 years I have learned how to talk to myself so that I become more thankful and grateful to God for all of His blessings to me. It works very well if you remember to start controlling your self-talk immediately after a bad circumstance or event.