Psalm 42
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42 is the honest cry of a very depressed man. The writer was a man who once had it all, "How I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng."(4) This great leader has become a man of a downcast soul. He once used to lead God's people with shouts of joy, but now he is a man of sorrow, of pain, of tears, of bitterness, and of mourning. The great spiritual leader is now the one who cries out in desperation, "Why have you forgotten me?"(9)
Life with God is by no means a life without pain; it is an eternal life without pain. In this life, we have hardships and God doesn't just take them all away. Living for Christ means when suffering comes, we approach it in the way Jesus did. Jesus prayed for the cup to pass from him; he wanted to be spared from the pain of death on the cross, so he earnestly prayed but accepted God's perfect will.
Jesus remembered who God was and dealt with his pain. When we are in pain we need to deal with it in the right way. The psalmist when depressed said, "I will yet praise him."(5) When he cried all the time, he still said, "His song is with me."(8)
The only way to deal with suffering is to turn to the Lord. Easier said then done, right? It's easy to quote something like, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble"(Psalm 46:1), but quite another to believe it. I think this is why the writer tells himself to "put your hope in God"(5,11). He has the same trouble we all do trusting in God.
The key to trusting in God in the times of trouble is to consistently remember who he is and what he has done. The writer clings to God, his hope and salvation. People taunt him, he is weak, he feels apart from God, and he can't stop crying, even with so much pain he turns to the Lord. In fact, his only cure for depression is remembering who God is, "My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you."
"Therefore" is never a throw away word. Because his soul is downcast, he remembers God. Because he is in pain, he turns to Jesus. Because of his tears, he praises his savior. His pain always turned him to the Lord.
If we can grow in the attitude of the psalmist, not only will suffering be easier to handle, but God will be shown to others through us.
Are you crying like a Christian?
