Pay Attention to Self-Talk
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. Zephaniah 3:17
For several years in my life, I didn’t like me at all! When anger erupted, I belittled myself and screamed hateful and hurtful comments. “You are so stupid!” or “You’ll never amount to anything so give up now!” Thankfully, I didn’t quit and after reading a book titled The Singing God, those outbursts all but disappeared. Grace Fox (Mornings with Jesus) has also learned some insightful lessons about self-talk.
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Jesus has been teaching me to pay attention to my self-talk. It’s been a valuable lesson because it has revealed pet phrases that are far from the truth. One of the degrading thoughts is you’re not enough.
I’ve caught myself thinking this phrase within the context of being a sister, wife, mother, and grandmother. It creates the fear of inadequacy and hinders transparency in my relationships with my loved ones.
I struggle with it within the context of podcasting and writing for publication. It causes me to compare my skills with others in the same field and makes me feel as though I fall short.
I wrestle with it when I don’t maintain health-related goals or when I set new goals and don’t reach them as fast as I want. Before long, I feel like throwing those goals to the wind because I’ll never achieve them anyway. Why bother? You’re not enough.
Self-talk matters. The words I speak about myself, either aloud or silently in my thoughts, carry power to bring hope or breed discouragement. Now, when I catch myself speaking a lie, I immediately reject it and replace it with truth. You’re not enough becomes, Jesus is with me. He loves me, saves me, and rejoices over me with a song. Self-talk based on truth reminds me that Jesus thinks I’m special. That’s enough for me.
Loving Father, thank You for delighting in me. I confess I don’t always hear the song, but I do believe You are singing. Let my deepest desire be to please You. AMEN.