When the Darkness Will Not Lift

Perhaps our recent look at Psalms 42-43 which raised the topic of spiritual dryness has you thinking, or wrestling. Here is an excellent 83page resource by John Piper... buy it or read it online here.

Godward thoughts as we prepare for Corporate Worship

Tomorrow promises to be a great day in God's presence together. We will:
--sing His praises
--confess our sin
--be reminded of the finished work of Christ in our behalf!
--partake of the Sacrament of Baptism, the promise of God's cleansing grace in visible form
--say our memory verse together (I know it this week!)
--continue our meditation on Psalm 42-43 and the topic of "Spiritual Dryness"
--and more

"He who knows God, who, with faith's eye, has discovered some of His glory, and by the power of the spirit has felt something of His love, will not be at a loss to distinguish between God's sensible presence and absence in the soul." --Octavius Winslow

Talking to yourself? Or listening to yourself?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the former pastor and medical doctor from London, described the importance of preaching to ourselves: “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 are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in this psalm] 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 depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.’” Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965), 20