“…prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21 NIV)
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Psalm 42 is about depression. Sometimes people say they’re depressed, when what they really mean is they’re feeling sad.
Depression is defined as “sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason” (Dictionary.com)
In our English translation the writer of Psalm 42 describes his depression by saying that his soul is in “despair” and is “disturbed” within him. The Hebrew paints a more colorful picture. In the Hebrew it’s more like he says, “My soul is bent low by the weight of my sorrow, inside my heart is a dark storm” (See words for “Despair” and “disturbed” in the Hebrew).
But the writer of Psalm 42 is a follower of God. And so In the lowness and agitation of his depression he knows his remedy is the LORD.
His emotions are very real. He feels hopeless. But his hope is very real as well. The LORD is his hope.
The theme for our meditation today is “When Hopeless, I will Hope in God”.
Psalm 42 (NASB)
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
While they say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
4 These things I remember
and I pour out my soul within me
For I used to go along with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You
from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves
have rolled over me.
8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God my rock,
"Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?"
10 As a shattering of my bones,
my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
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Grace and Peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Risen and living Master and Savior Jesus Christ.
The writer of Psalm 42 is going through a difficult time. Troubles surround him like waves in a surging ocean. He wants to go to the LORD’s Temple. To pray. To hear God speak through His Holy Word. But he is far from Jerusalem and that is impossible at the moment.
His troubles have caused so much weeping lately that it seems like he is feeding on his own tears. Morning, noon and night they come.
His enemies taunt him daily, asking why the LORD isn’t doing anything to help him. “Where is your God anyway?” they say.
But still, this follower of God knows the remedy for his sorrow. God is the remedy. And so he thirsts for God.
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I was in a waiting room a while back and I saw a man reading a book called, “10 Ways Your Body Screams for Water”. Apparently there are numerous symptoms of dehydration that people experience and tolerate without knowing that relief is only a glass of water away!
I wonder how many times people take a couple pain pills or do something else to deal with these side effects instead of reaching for what their body actually needs –water.
And how many times do we try to satisfy our thirst for God with something else. Do we recognize the symptoms that plague us when we’ve gone to long without touching base with Him?
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In college I was having trouble. I wasn’t depressed, but I never felt like I was getting anything done. I’d get to the end of a day and think, “I haven’t accomplished a thing”.
I even stayed in “sick” one day just to do homework. Surely with a whole day of nothing but concentration on my studies I’d feel like I’d done something, right? Wrong. At the end of the day I felt even more worthless.
By God’s grace I realized what the problem was. I wasn’t coming back to God. I wasn’t opening my Bible to commune with Him. So I was not fulfilled.
I found that when God had a real place in my day, my day was fulfilling even if nothing else got checked off my to-do list.
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But the writer of Psalm 42 knew that he needed God. His problem wasn’t that he’d been forgetting about God. His problem is that the troubles he’s facing were stirring up feelings of despair in his soul, and those feelings kept crashing into him like breaking waves on the sea shore.
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In verse four His mind begins to drift back to better days:
“4 These things I remember
and I pour out my soul within me
For I used to go along with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence” (Psalm 42:4-5 NASB).
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Here the writer finds two ways to counter his depression. First, he remembers better days. Days when he would go up joyfully to the Temple with a group of friends.
When he remembers those days the writer remembers that God has been good to him in the past and he trusts that His God will be good to him in the future. God will keep His promises to watch over and deliver His followers. And when this happens, the writer knows that he will sing out praises to God once again with joy and thanksgiving.
We also can follow the writer’s example. When we are dragged down by our present circumstances. By troubles and responsibilities. We too can look back in our lives and remember how God has been good to us in the past. And looking forward, we can be sure that God will remain good to us.
As He writes in Psalm 50:
“… call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:15 NIV).
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One of the most helpful things in this Psalm is the way that the writer talks to his own soul. His soul is troubled, and he is counseling that soul. Rebuking that soul. Telling that soul to look to the LORD in hope.
This way of speaking reminds us that Christians have two parts. We are sinners and saints. Sinners by birth, saints by faith in Christ Jesus. And because we are two sided people, we experience things that don’t seem like they should go together.
Because of the sinner side we experience doubt. Sorrow. Anger. Frustration. But because of the saint side, we counter doubt with faith. Sorrow with joy. Anger with peace. Frustration with perseverance.
When our sinner side gets us down, we answer back with our saint side just like the writer of Psalm 42. We say, “Why are you so down? Hope in God, he’s coming back to rescue, and when He does I will praise Him!”
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The feelings of despair that the writer is feeling are very real, and persistent. He speaks to God of these feelings in verse six.
“6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You
from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves
have rolled over me.
8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life” (Psalm 42:6-8 NASB).
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The writer is in the wilderness. If we didn’t catch on with the deer comparison in verse one, here we do. He is in the Hermon Mountain Range on Mt. Mizar. Hermon is by far the largest mountain in the area and is usually snowcapped. This mountain and the surrounding ones serve as the water source of the Jordan river.
By his description, it appears that the writer of Psalm 42 is in hiding out in this wilderness. Sitting next to a rushing river which plummets down in a loud waterfall. But this beautiful setting only reminds him of the rush and noise of all the troubles that have fallen all around Him. Deep calls to deep. The deep waters a the base of the waterfall remind him of the deep sorrow he feels.
In the Hebrew the word “deep” refers to “an area below the surface of bodies of water, a dark, inaccessible, inexhaustible, and mysterious place controlled only by objects with vast powers” (Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains).
Though the writer feels overwhelmed by all his troubles, his saint side also recognizes the LORD is not idle. The LORD is working in the daytime – for the good of His faithful. And in the night, He comforts those faithful by brining to their minds His songs.
Being a “Son of Korah”, the writer of this Psalm knew many of God’s songs. The Sons of Korah helped with the musical parts of worship at God’s Temple. Those songs would come back to him in the night. And no doubt he would take these songs and pray them back to God.
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Psalm 127 says that God,
“…grants sleep to those he loves” (Psalm 127:2 NIV).
After the night time prayers and songs are done. God gives rest. Resetting of thoughts. Restoring of body. When His power does not remove our trouble, His power at least replenishes us enough that we may face another day.
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In the last three verses of Psalm 42 the writer give us one more reason to hope in God when all seems hopeless: God listens to the prayers of His saints.
“9 I will say to God my rock,
"Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?"
10 As a shattering of my bones,
my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:9-11 NASB).
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The writer lets us hear his prayer to God. It is an honest prayer. No church words here. No carefully crafted positive and flowery language.
Did you forget me God?
Why do I have to mourn?
They’re mocking me and you!
The writer addresses these things to the God whom He calls “his Rock”. This is the open and honest prayer of a believer. God bless us all that we may pray this way. Open. Honest, but also in solid faith to the one solid Rock we have in our own storms of emotion. God our Rock. Jehovah our God.
And then verse eleven it’s like the saint side kicks in and puts the questioning soul in it’s place once more. Repeating what was said before:
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:11 NASB).
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Perhaps that phrase sounds strange to our ears, “the help of my countenance”. It’s describes a simple enough concept. God helps those who’s face is turned to Him in faith. Those who’s back is turned to Him can expect to receive nothing from Him.
God’s children may FEEL hopeless in depression, but feelings do not determine reality. Those who look to the LORD for help will receive it.
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I’d like to share one more little Hebrew tidbit. That word, “help” in verse 11 is pronounced, “Je-shu-oht” in the Hebrew. It’s a form of the word “helper” or “Savior”. Transferred over to the Greek of it’s “Jesus”.
This reminds us of the reason that God can help sinners like you and me. Jesus was not helped on the cross of Calvary. He suffered alone. Abandoned. Forsaken. Punished for a world of sinners, so that we might have hope even when it seems there should be none.
And that is what we have in Christ Jesus, when all seems hopeless, we have hope in Him. For in Christ Jesus we have crossed over from death to life.
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Remember His faithfulness in your moments of sorrow. Remember His power when you foot seems to slip. Remember God’s open ears hear the voice of His children, and by faith in Christ Jesus that is what you are.
Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
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