Psalm 42
TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A MASKIL OF THE SONS OF KORAH.
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul 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 the day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation
6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and 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 do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Listen up, buddy
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Spiritual Depression, pp 20-21)
One of the prominent emotional conditions in the Psalms is spiritual depression. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote a book titled Spiritual Depression and based it on Psalm 42. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”
The Psalmist admits the reality of his spiritual state, the rut of his condition and the release that God brings.
The Reality
The Psalmist acknowledges that his condition is one of dryness. He gives us the visual imagery of deer and deep desire to drink. This Psalmist is a professional musician who used to be in the employ of the temple court leading festal throngs and joyous processions. Unlike other psalms his condition is not brought on by any gross, unconfessed sin. His condition is just a reality of living in a broken world with a broken soul.
The Rut
The reality of his spiritual depression he admits come from three potential causes. Firstly he experiences a disruption of human community. He used to be in the Jerusalem, but now due to circumstances unknown to us he I geographically separated from the community he loves. Secondly he suffers disillusionment with the turn of events in his life. The onset of spiritual depression has cause him to question the nature and character of his faith and the nature and character of God. Thirdly he experiences deprivation. What was once a only spiritual condition has now become a physical condition. He cries. He cannot sleep. He cannot eat. “My tears have been my food day and night,” (42:3)
The Response
His response involves is a beautiful pouring out of his soul. He is not simply wallowing. He is processing his pleas before his Redeemer. He then remembers specific covenant moments of God’s loyal love (I remember…how I would go with the throng…to the house of God”(42:4). He then analyses his hopes, Are his deepest hopes in God or in other good things, but not the Ultimate Good. Lastly, he preaches to himself. He resolutely tells himself about grace, time and time again. As part of the artistic community of singers and poets he uses illustrations and language that ring his bell and bring grace to bear on his situation. The imagery of God’s overwhelming, billowing grace is clearly evident in the pictures he paints to himself. This Psalm points to the one who truly said “I thirst” (Ps 42:1; John 19:28). It points to The One whose adversaries taunted in His spiritual depression saying, “Where is your God” (Psalm 42:10; Matt 27:43).
This surety of grace will give us the boldness just as this Son of Korah had. With determination we can say, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him.” This professional musician says “I will definitely pick my lyre up again…”