Rooted · Week 1 · Wednesday

Talk Back to Your Soul

The voice in his head had gotten cruel, and he had been believing every word of it.

In the hard stretch he was walking through, a running commentary had moved into his mind and set up shop. You are failing. You are a fraud, and sooner or later everyone will see it. You have ruined this, and God has finally gotten tired of you and moved on. It ran all day long, in his own voice, and because it sounded exactly like him, he assumed it must simply be true.

You don’t have to believe everything you think.

You Can Answer the Voice

Here is what he had never realized. You do not have to believe everything you think. And you certainly do not have to obey the voice that shows up in the middle of a storm specifically to kick you while you are already down. That voice is not neutral, and in a trial it is rarely telling you the truth.

David knew that voice well. And watch closely what he does with it, because it is the whole lesson. He does not sit quietly and let it talk. He turns around and talks back to it.

Look at the two moves. First he interrogates his own despair, right out loud. Why are you so cast down? Why are you in such turmoil? He treats the feeling like something he is allowed to question instead of something he has to obey. Then he preaches truth directly at it. Hope in God. He does not wait around to feel hopeful. He commands his own soul toward hope.

The Truth Got Louder

So he started answering the voice instead of just agreeing with it. Every time it said you are finished, he said back, out loud if he had to, no, hope in God. Every time it said God is done with you, he answered it with what was actually true. It felt strange at first, arguing with himself in the car, preaching to his own heart.

But slowly the truth got louder than the lie. Not because his feelings changed first, but because he stopped letting his feelings hold the only microphone. This is the difference between our way and God’s way in a storm. Our way listens to the lie until we sink into it. God’s way declares the truth over it until the truth is the loudest thing in the room. The storm doesn’t get to decide who you become.

Tomorrow · Keep the Line Open