Preaching Truth to Yourself Rather Than Listening to Your Feelings

One of the central themes in Martyn Lloyd-Jones's Spiritual Depression is the relationship between thought, emotion, and spiritual perception. Lloyd-Jones argues that spiritual depression is often intensified when believers allow their feelings to become the primary authority through which they interpret their circumstances, their relationship with God, and even their own spiritual condition. When emotions become the interpreter of truth, a person can begin to evaluate God's character and faithfulness according to how he or she feels in a particular moment. Because emotions naturally fluctuate, this creates an unstable foundation for spiritual life.

Lloyd-Jones does not suggest that emotions are unimportant or that Christians should simply ignore painful feelings. Rather, his concern is the authority given to those feelings. A believer may experience discouragement, fear, sadness, loneliness, guilt, or spiritual dryness. Those experiences are real. However, the presence of a feeling does not automatically establish the truth of the conclusion attached to that feeling. A person may feel abandoned without actually being abandoned by God. A person may feel hopeless without actually having no hope. A person may feel spiritually distant without God having withdrawn His presence.

This creates an important distinction:

Feelings are real experiences, but they are not always reliable interpreters of reality.

For Lloyd-Jones, spiritual stability develops when the believer learns to bring feelings under the direction of biblical truth rather than allowing feelings to determine what is believed.

1. The Problem of “Listening to Yourself”

One of Lloyd-Jones's most memorable ideas is that Christians can spend too much time listening to themselves and not enough time talking to themselves.

When a person listens to himself, the internal conversation may sound like:

“I don't feel close to God.”

“God must be disappointed with me.”

“Nothing is going to change.”

“I don't have enough faith.”

“God isn't answering my prayers.”

“I feel like a failure.”

The person experiences the thought and emotion as though it were an objective statement of reality.

Lloyd-Jones proposes a different approach.

Instead of allowing internal feelings to preach the message, the believer must begin preaching truth to himself.

The internal conversation changes from:

“This is how I feel, therefore this must be true.”

to:

“This is how I feel. Now, what does God say is true?”

That distinction is foundational.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn. Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure. Eerdmans, 1965. Kindle ed.