Psalm 22:22-24
Hurt happens, offences come, misunderstanding occurs – that’s life.
Still, hurt, offences and misunderstanding don’t go away because we ignore them or acknowledge them not.
Somehow they find a way to get out of our system. Whether you are an exploder or imploder what we hide eventually surfaces.
What do we do with our feelings and thoughts as they happen is crucial to the life we will live.
I was calling a good friend of mine yesterday and I noticed that there were pauses in our conversation that made me feel uncomfortable.
I felt rejected and ’not given full attention’ which immediately made me start to play that ’rejection’ tape in my mind. I started to be cold with my friend and a bit indifferent.
Because I have been working on ’listening to what I tell myself’ I recognized what was going on inside my mind and I had to stop a few moments to reckon with my thoughts and decide the direction I would follow.
For me, that’s the best way to entangle our internal talk.
Stop and hear the hurt so that the hurt has a chance to be healed.
L.D
It’s uncomfortable at times and the urge is to ignore our stories inside our head, but if I didn’t explore my reaction and took deeper my reasoning my friendship with my friend might have been jeopardised. Next time we talked I would have been cold, uninterested and abrupt.
Choosing to listen to our feelings and reactions, to our thoughts and the chain of reasoning, gives us the opportunity to renew them in the light of the truth.
David in today’s psalm has had an internal wrestling and in the end is inviting his friends to look at the truth. The truth about God and his character and how that makes us the people we do much love to be.
“Here’s the story I’ll tell my friends when they come to worship, and punctuate it with Hallelujahs: Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers; give glory, you sons of Jacob; adore him, you daughters of Israel. He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.”
Psalm 22:22-24 MSG
God is forever listening and standing by us. That’s the truth by which we can mirror all other thoughts and emotions we experience.
He knows us and the people we do life with, all the people, he can give us the wisdom and understanding we need to make sure that what we tell ourselves about ourselves and others is accurate.
In the rumble, the Holy Spirit roars.