TALKING Yourself into the Life GOD MADE You FOR!
By Neil Gass

Proverbs 23:7 “As a man THINKS in his HEART, so he IS.”

Has it ever occurred to you that of all the conversations that occur in your day, the one that impacts your life most is not the one with the boss, the doctor, your spouse, your stock broker? No, it’s the one-sided conversation you hold with YOURSELF!

You’ve had the experience of sitting in your car at a traffic light and glancing across at the guy in the car next to yours. His lips are moving but there’s nobody else in the car. Talking to ourselves is something normal people do every day. The results of these talks can be really life impacting. Let’s consider a few observations on this crucial topic.

First: EVERYBODY TALKS TO HIMSELF. 

Whether your lips are moving or not you are talking to yourself! Everybody, no exceptions, does it. It’s simply a form of THINKING, RUMINATING, ANALYZING, ANTICIPATING, INTERPRETING life, people, events to yourself. You couldn’t function effectively if you stopped talking to yourself for even a moment! This mental processing can sabotage you or support you in living your life effectively.

Second: Everybody talks to himselfALL the TIME.

That’s because your brain never shutsoff. It’s always processing and this self talk goes on often below the level of your awareness. Never the less, it, much more than anyone or anything else, is responsible for how you live and where you go in life! What you say when you talk to yourself determines whether you stay in the passenger’s seat of your own life or move into the driver’s seat.

Third: Everybody LISTENS to HIMSELF .

You may not pay much attention to what anyone else says. That may go in one ear and out the other, leaving no evidence it was ever there. Think of the things you heard spoken in church, seminars, high school, college, but couldn’t recall if your life depended on it. BUT, you certainlyLISTEN to what YOU SAY when you talk to yourself, and you find it much harder toforget those things! If you say it, you hear it and you carry it with you in your memory banks. If YOU SAY it, you take it to HEART. Prov. 23:7 “As a man thinks IN HIS HEART, so he IS.” It goes straight from your self-talk department to the deepest place in your being, your heart, and then you are bound to REACT to it! There’s nothing more important than to be in charge of what you say to yourself, because it is powerfullycontrolling your life.

Fourth: Everybody BELIEVES WHAT HE SAYS to HIMSELF . 

In fact, we tend to UNCRITICALLY ACCEPT AS TRUTH whatever we tell ourselves. We are trained to have some healthy skepticism about what others say and to judge it by the facts, as we can ascertain them. But no such wisdom applies when it comes to what we tell ourselves! “If I say it, it has to be true,” is the rule we follow in our own case! “Why would I lie to ME?”

So, we simply and uncritically tend to BELIEVE our perceptions, perspectives, opinions, interpretations, conclusions and speculations as stated in our self talk and turn them into INCONTROVERTIBLE BELIEFS, CAST IN CONCRETE! After that, it is only logical that we LIVE THEM OUT -positive or negative! Nowthe CYCLE kicks into gear. We SAY it to ourselves; we BELIEVE it in our heart and, since “Out of the abundance of the HEART the MOUTH SPEAKS,” (Matt. 24:34.) we SAY it again and again!

The GOOD news is, however, that this self-propelled, self-reinforcing cycle of behavior works just as powerfully in a POSITIVE direction as it does in a NEGATIVE one! You’ve heard the computer science principle - “GARBAGE in, garbage OUT!” The believer’s equivalent is just as scientific – “God’s WORD in, God’s word OUT!” The problem is notyour mind; it’s what you FEED it through your self-talk. The mental “machinery” works the same way and according to the same principle, whatever you feed it. Just learn to feed it positive, faith-oriented, Godly “data” and watch the output change!

Fifth: Everybody IS INFLUENCED by what he SAYS to HIMSELF . 

God designed you to ACT on what you reallyBELIEVE! The human organism needs CONGRUENCY. To maintain health of spirit, soul and body, people need to live in agreement with what they believe. When you don’t, disintegration automatically results at all levels! Break downs occur when you live at odds with what you really believe. You’re designed so that your beliefs PULL your behaviors in their direction. We do stupid, self-defeating things because we’ve adopted stupid, self-defeating beliefs! We do smart, life-enhancing things because we’ve adopted smart, life-enhancing beliefs.

So, WHAT have you been saying to yourself today? Has it moved you closer to your divine destiny & goals, or further from them? Has it encouraged or discouraged you; put you in the driver’s seat or the passenger’s seat of your own life? Remember it’s YOUR self-talk and YOUR decision. It’s time to start SAYING to yourself what GOD says about you, so that you can begin to BELIEVE what GOD believes about you and BEHAVE congruently with that, so that all the great things HE planned for your life can happen!