The main art in the matter of spiritual living

is to know how to handle ourselves.

We have to take ourselves in hand,

We have to address ourselves,

We have to preach to ourselves,

We have to question ourselves.

You must say to your soul:

Why are you cast down’–

what business do we have being discouraged?

We must turn on ourselves,

We must yell at ourselves,

We must condemn ourselves,

We must exhort ourselves & say to ourselves: ‘

Hope thou in God’

instead of muttering weird stuff to ourselves

And then we must go on to remind ourselves of God,

Who God is & what God is & what God has done,

and what God has promised Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note:

defy ourselves & defy other people & defy the devil

and defy the whole world & say to ourselves

‘I shall yet priase Him for the help of His countenance,

who is also the health of my countenance & my God’.

Adapted from (Spiritual Depression, 20-21)

D. M. Lloyd Jones