Stop Talking to Your Problems and Start Talking to God

Many times phrases which sound good but aren’t grounded in the message of the Scriptures work their way into Christian lingo. Many times they sound like good wisdom and even sound spiritual, but betray what the Scriptures teach. This may seem like a ridiculous trifling over phrases, but if we believe things that are not true it produces a low standard of Christian living and ultimately detracts from the glory of God and hinders the progress of the Gospel.

One such phrase I hear often is, “Stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your God is.” This sounds great because it aligns with our bent towards action. It’s a nice way of telling us to get off of our complaining rear-ends and do something.

The Bible does not talk this way though. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Paul in Philippians 4 instructs believers to come to God with our anxieties. He’s not telling us to talk to our problems, but to come and talk to God. We should do this because as Peter says, “he cares for us.” He invites us in to lay our cares on his capable shoulders and in exchange he gives us peace. What an incredible blessing God offers to his people! He takes our cares and gives peace so deep we cannot fathom it or explain it.

With our modern pragmatic bent, we speak of prayer as if it is doing nothing. Jesus did not seem to approach prayer as if it was doing nothing. In fact he often pushed away for time to pray when large crowds with pressing needs surrounded him. He walked away from pressing needs so he could pray. Many of the guys who churn out the religious quotes prevalent in our culture would tell Jesus he was choosing to do nothing when he could be doing something. Since Jesus sought time in the midst of pressing needs to be alone with his Father, how much more do we need it as well? Prayer gives us the assurance of our Father’s love for us and reminds us of his empowerment to face the storms in our lives. When we are walking through trials, the last thing we need to hear is that we should stop talking God. This is plain lunacy.

We should stop saying that a person crying out to God in the midst of difficulty is complaining. If this were the case the writers of the Psalms were guilty of gross complaining. The book of Psalms contains more laments than any other type of Psalm. One writer noted there are so many laments that we can break them into subcategories. Because of the influence of the health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel,” we lost lament in our worship in favor of a triumphalism which seems to forget we are still living on this side of Jesus’ return. While we experience grace and victory over sin now, we still live in a broken world and need to know how to mourn and lament when life is hard. Instead of telling a Christian in difficulty to stop complaining, we should encourage them to follow the example of the Psalmists and cry out to the one who can effect change on their behalf.

Even after the Christian has prayed, we don’t talk to our problems. We do need to talk to ourselves though. In his book Spiritual Depression, Martyn Lloyd-Jones shows a pattern in Psalm 42. After saying his soul panted for God as a deer pants for a flowing stream, the Pslamist spoke to himself. He said, “Why are you cast down, O my soul,and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.” Lloyd-Jones comments on this passage should be heard and taken to heart by every Christian.

“The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problem of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks. His soul had been repressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you’. Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have but little experience.

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet priase Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.”

What should we do in response to this? We should read the Bible, meditate on the Bible, pray, consistently remind ourselves of the truth, and then live by faith and obedience. This is not spiritual pacifism; it is the normal Christian life.

The phrase we quoted at the beginning is also problematic because it comes from the health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” sewer. Unfortunately the health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” has become a parasite that has attached itself to the healthy host known as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and well-meaning but naive Christians have allowed its tentacles to sink in deeply. The prosperity pimps realized in recent years that people have begun to see through the more ostentatious presentations of their claims, so they have taken a different approach. The most adept expositions of this cancer don’t contain appeals for “seed gifts,” but have taken a life coach approach to Christianity. They help you overcome negative thoughts, live in financial freedom, and have a happy family. These all appeal to our felt needs so we take in their message hook, line, and sinker while not knowing what we have just ingested. In fact many Christians who should know better have landed in prosperity churches without realizing it because the messages sound so “practical.”

The health and wealth gurus teach we become little gods when we get saved. What happens when you become a “little god?” God created reality with his words, so now you can speak to your circumstances and create something out of nothing too “Start talking to your checkbook. Tell it God is going to pay your bills. Tell that cancer to go away. You have already claimed your healing.” This all sounds nice, but it is rooted in poison. A Christian does not become a little God when we come to Christ. We’re redeemed sinners made in God’s image. We are dependent creatures. We don’t need to speak to our circumstances. We cannot change them. Instead we cry out to the one who can give us peace in our storms and deliver us. Then we trust him and walk by faith empowered by his Spirit. This path glorifies God in his goodness, points to the sufficiency of Christ in the Gospel, and brings us the most joy in following him.

Related Posts:
“Three Reasons You Should Pray Today”
“Why You Should Read the Psalms”

For Further Reading:
Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney
Praying with Paul by D.A. Carson