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Introspection

Regularly I see people who have a tendency to be introspective. When I ask them if this introspection is an “upper” or a “downer” the answer is “a downer.” Then I ask them, “Is it accusatory or convicting?” The answer is “accusatory.”

The accuser of the brethren is Satan. This introspection is not of God. Recently I read an account by Charles Finney speaking of himself in the 1820’s almost 200 years ago.

“Sometimes I would pursue a wrong course in fasting, and attempt to examine myself according to the ideas of self-examination then entertained by my minister and the church. I would try to look into my own heart, in the sense of examining my feelings; and would turn my attention particularly to my motives, and the state of my mind. When I pursued this course, I found invariably that the day would close without any perceptible advance being made. Afterward I saw clearly why this was so. Turning my attention as I did, from the Lord Jesus Christ, and looking into myself, examining my motives and feelings, my feelings all subsided of course. But whenever I fasted, and let the Spirit take his own course with me, and gave myself up to let him lead and instruct me, I universally found it in the highest degree useful.”

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