Daily Devotion # 2

Just like Tricks are For Kids, Pity Parties are Too

“Insults have broken my heart, and I am sick. I looked for sympathy, but there was none. I looked for people to comfort me, but I found no one.” Psalm 69:20

Ask yourself: in the midst of your situation, of all your self-pitying and loathing of the world, have you CRIED out to God? Have you tried laying your grievances at His feet and stepped back? Have you sought mature religious counsel and ACTUALLY listened to what they have said? Have you encouraged yourself? Have you reaffirmed your faith with scriptures specifically tailored to your circumstances? Have you gotten on your knees and prayed? Have you had one of those good ole, soul-purging cries that allows you to be filled by the presence of the Holy Spirit, warming your body until you feel like it’s 100 degrees and its only 50 around you—well everybody may not get that feeling lol. But if you have answered no to at least one of the above questions, it may be that you are wallowing in self-pity and making yourself the only guest of a pity party.

Wake up and realize that the only people that are allowed to do this are little kids. Even then its not cute nor is it healthy. When I was in the hospital when I first got sick and immediately after, I was in a major pity party. I had reason and it took me a long time to come to terms with what had happened to me. But by the grace of God I am glad to be gone from that place. You submit yourself to unnecessary mental anguish when you allow yourself to live in pittance alone; you allow nothing that anyone says to you to cheer you up and you ignore the blessings that you have. You begin to doubt your faith and ignore the promises God gives. The Psalmist above suffered from insults and could find no human to comfort him. They poisoned his food and gave him vinegar to drink—what a way to treat someone, but what he did in verse 24 was implored God to seek His wrath on them.(Psalm 69:24) We can do the same—ask God to change our situations, to avenge our hurts and wrongs, and to change things for us. It does us no good to remain in self-pity, because this is only a situation where we continue to hurt ourselves. We allow whatever caused us to get in that state to keep opening the wound by deciding to live in it and hold onto it. Job received no comfort from his so-called friends and instead became the butt of false accusations as to his downward turn. But the most glorifying thing in that whole situation came when He called upon God and repented for pitying himself. Don’t you know that God changed it all for him, and that God delivered him and restored EVERYTHING Job lost!(Job 42) That is, of course, after He corrected him. Several times throughout the Bible God tells us to give Him our burdens and to ask Him for our needs. But how can He do what He needs to do if you don’t let him? You cannot move if you do not first lift your foot to take a step FORWARD. Think about it…where would we be if Jesus had chosen to have a pity party for being the sacrifice for ungrateful and undeserving people? So quit being stubborn and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You will spend a lot of time by yourself and miss out on boundless blessings that way…

“You greatly rejoice in this, even though you have to suffer various kinds of trial for a little while, The purpose of these troubles is to test your faith as fire tests how genuine gold is. Your faith is more precious than gold, and by passing the test, it gives praise, glory, and honor to God. This will happen when Jesus Christ appears again.” 1 Peter 1:6-7(ISV, GWT)