Women of Grace 2024: Devotion on Psalm 42 and 43
The Women’s Ministry organised a Women of Grace event on 16 November 2024. Ruth, one of our members, shared a devotion from Psalm 42 and 43 which exhorted women to recognise their need, remember their God and preach to themselves in their struggles.
Psalm 42 and 43 have been considered to be two parts of a single poem. There is a consistent voice running throughout these two psalms and they are also tied together by three repeated phrases (refrains):
Why do I go mourning…” (Ps 42:9 and Ps 43:2)
“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.” (Ps 42:5, Ps 42:11 and Ps 43:5)
“Where is your God” (Ps 42:10b; Ps 42:3b)
This poem is sad yet beautiful. We feel the raw emotions of the psalmist and can feel his deep sorrow. Yet we also marvel at his faith in God. This poem is written by someone who was exiled and far from the temple worship of God. You can hear his deep and personal lament as he longs to be back at God’s house. From a plain reading of the text, we know the psalmist is severely discouraged and sorrowful.
Before we go further, let us briefly look at the heading of this psalm. The authorship of this poem is attributed to the sons of Korah. Now, a word about this Levitical family. They are descendants of Korah who died for his rebellion as recorded in Numbers 26. His descendants would eventually serve in the temple as temple doorkeepers, guardians, singers and musicians. They were very involved in the worship activities of God’s people. Therefore, to be exiled and be away from the temple has brought the psalmist much distress.
God has made us creatures of emotions. … As sinners, we can have sinful emotions and responses to our circumstances or when we are sinned against. … we depend on the Spirit to sanctify even our emotions and thoughts.
Now I want to draw your attention to a word in the heading of this psalm. It is called a maskil. It comes from a Hebrew verb that means to make someone wise, or to instruct. This psalm is not just a song but also instruction for us. It can make us wise as we allow the psalmist’s response to shape our minds and hearts. As we read this psalm and others, the Holy Spirit will lead us to think and feel with the psalmist. Now this is important to note, because God has made us creatures of emotions. Our emotions are a big part of us. Yet we, as sinners, can have sinful emotions and responses to our circumstances or when we are sinned against. Therefore, the psalms come in really helpful in this way as we depend on the Spirit to sanctify even our emotions and thoughts.
Let’s now turn our attention to the words of the psalmist.
In the opening verses, he likens himself to a deer that is very thirsty, to the point of death. The word “pants” in Hebrew means to have a keen, consuming desire. The psalmist has an intense longing for God. He is going through a spiritual drought himself. His soul thirsts for God – he is yearning for God. He is so sorrowful that he is with tears day and night (Ps 42:3).
To add to his sorrow, he was being taunted by others. The scoffers ridiculed his faith as it seemed that God had forgotten him. The relentless taunting hurts so deep, that he likens it to a deadly wound in his bones (Ps 42:10).
The psalmist is not just tormented by the scoffers around him; he is also reminded by the alien landscape he is in. He is located near the mountain range of Hermon and Mount Mizar. This all means that he is far from Jerusalem, the city of God. Here, he can see the river Jordan gushing round boulders and falls. The scene before him is crushing to his soul as it mirrors what is inside him. He feels like he is drowning in sorrow, overwhelmed by his circumstances. In Psalm 42:7, he writes, “Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and waves have gone over me.”
Finally, we hear his emotional distress and anguish in these questions of when, where and why:
“When shall I come and appear before God?” (Ps 42:2)
“Where is your God?” (Ps 42:3)
“Why are you cast down, O my soul” (Ps 42:5)
“Why are you in turmoil within me?” (Ps 42:5)
“Why have you forgotten me?” (Ps 42:9)
“Why do I go mourning...” (Ps 42:9)
Sisters, this man is severely discouraged and sorrowful.
Haven’t we all felt some of these emotions ourselves? Our circumstances might look very different from the psalmist, but we are not unfamiliar with his spiritual depression. We live in a world that is broken by sin. We too have unanswered prayers and unfulfilled desires, we have faced rejection and broken promises, we have lost loved ones, we have struggled with patterns of sin, we have gone through seasons of spiritual drought, we have loved ones whose hearts are hardened to the gospel, we have been hurt and discouraged by others, and we have been mocked and taunted for our faith.
Recognise Your Need
Therefore, my first encouragement to you today is this – It is okay to not be okay.
The first step in fighting for joy is recognising that you are not doing well. It takes vulnerability to be a thirsty deer panting for water as compared to the self-sufficient and resilient camel (an analogy that Bible teacher Derek Kidner uses). Do you know the camel is called the ship of the desert? It can transport heavy loads across long distances in the desert without food or water. It is really quite impressive and the world would want us to be camels too. But the Bible says we are no camels. We are deers that pant for God. We are sheep that are lost without a shepherd.
It takes humility to feel our hunger for God. Whether we are longtime Christians, serving in leadership roles, or newly converted, it is no weakness to admit that we long for God, that we feel forgotten. That we want to feel God near to us.
The psalmist demonstrates there is a godly way to be introspective and to bare your emotions to God. The psalmist has laid bare his soul. His raw emotions are right before us. He is someone who actively served in the temple, not unlike our worship leaders leading us in worship every week. One would think he’s spiritually mature and strong, but even he is not spared the pressures of life. He sets an example for us who are struggling spiritually and emotionally.
Even our Lord Jesus experienced great sorrow and distress as He was about to die on the cross. In John 12:27, He says, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.’”
And again in Matthew 26:38, Jesus was praying in Gethsemane. He was greatly distressed, saying to His disciples, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
It should encourage us that Jesus himself has gone through great sorrow and distress. He suffered the greatest separation and alienation from God when He died on the cross for sinners. Yet He hoped in God to the end.
Some of us might feel that we cannot afford to be not okay. Perhaps you are a young adult struggling to stay afloat with work, friendships, and this whole thing called adulting. Perhaps you are a working mother trying your best to balance work and family, and also mom guilt. Perhaps you are a caregiver and the burden of caregiving is so great you are just trying to get through each day at a time. Perhaps you are facing a number of health challenges and the one way that you can face tomorrow is to be stoic about it. Perhaps you have a strained relationship with your adult children, that is too painful to talk about. In each of these situations: you are thinking: there is just no time, no freedom, no way you can stop to say you’re not ok. And you could be turning to man-made solutions — a new hobby, a new purchase, a new relationship, another holiday — to numb your sorrow and anguish.
It is okay to not be okay. You can come to Jesus.
If this is you, I say again to you: It is okay to not be okay. You can come to Jesus.
Jesus says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Would you come before the Lord your God in all your weakness, in your tears, and cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you (1 Pet 5:7)?
Sisters, like the psalmist, we live in a constant tension between our present earthly life and eternity. While we look forward to our heavenly home, we are currently living in a time and place where we face all kinds of pressures that rob us of joy and happiness.
Search your soul like the psalmist does. Be introspective. Ponder the reasons causing you to be distressed or sorrowful. Stop running away from the gnawing pain in your soul. Do not try to soothe it by covering it up with more things to do, more meetings to attend, more socials.There is no greater need than now to draw near to God.
Remember your God
My second encouragement to you today is, remember your God.
While it is okay to not be okay, our faith can help us overcome. The psalmist is a man of faith. Even while he struggles greatly, he also knows where his help comes from. While we hear of his anguish and distress in this poem, we also hear of his faith in God.
Two times he writes, “I remember”. In Psalm 42:4, he brings to mind the worship rituals he took part in. And he remembers the joy that filled his heart as he worshipped God. In Psalm 42:7-8, he continues to remember God as he finds himself in unfamiliar territory. He knows of God as the Lord of creation. He acknowledges the waterfalls and waves are created by God, but he also knows Him as the God who shows steadfast love to him and is near to Him.
Throughout the psalm, it is also evident he knows who his God is. In Psalm 42:9, he calls God his rock. Even though he asked the question, why have you forgotten me? He knows deep inside that God is still with him. God is the rock he can lean on and whom he can seek refuge under (Ps 42:9). He exhorts his soul to hope in God. He knows that God is his salvation (Ps 42:5, 11). He knows that God is the one who can vindicate, defend and deliver him (Ps 43:1). He takes refuge in God (Ps 43:2). He calls upon God to send out his light and truth to lead him back to the temple once again (Ps 43:3). He identifies God as his exceeding joy (Ps 43:4). He calls upon his soul to hope in God. He knows that God will lift him out of this state of anguish that he may once again praise God.
Do you remember your God when your soul is in turmoil? Do you bring to mind past experiences of joy in the Lord? Past evidences of God’s steadfast love shown to you? His faithfulness to you?
When we find ourselves in the darkest of valleys, when we are fighting for joy in the Lord, remembering who God is (His attributes, His unchanging character) is our only comfort and hope to fight the strong emotions of depression. So, remember God’s sovereignty, His steadfast love, His faithfulness.
When Jesus was very troubled in His soul, it was to God He turned. In the garden, He remembered God’s glory and God’s sovereign will. He wanted to glorify God and wanted His will to be done. As distressing it was, He went to the cross knowing that God will raise Him from the dead and exalt Him to heaven. He hoped in God to the end.
Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which the child of God rests his head at night, giving perfect peace.” Even as we go through the fiery furnace of trials, we can sleep in peace knowing that God is in control of all things, good and bad.
Listen to Paul in Romans 8:38-39 as he too remembers God’s love in the midst of trials: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In times of distress, anguish and even confusion, we are to trust in God’s sovereignty and love for us.
Listen to Habakkuk as the prophet lamented in Habakkuk 1:2, “How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” Like the psalmist, the prophet cries out to the Lord, and God gave an unexpected answer: “For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. (Hab 1:5)”
Remember your God. Look upward at God for who He is, look back at what he has done for you, look forward to what he will do for you.
He is truly your only hope.
Dear sisters, many times this is how the Lord works. Because His ways are higher than our ways, we will not know how things pan out. The Lord says even if He had told Habakkuk, he would not believe. How about you? Will you believe? Will you trust in God’s plans and purposes for you even if you can’t understand them right now?
Remember your God. Look upward at God for who He is, look back at what he has done for you, look forward to what he will do for you.
He is truly your only hope.
Preach to yourself
My third encouragement to you is, preach to yourself.
In the midst of his spiritual depression, the psalmist is preaching to his troubled soul. He talks to himself, he exhorts himself, he scolds himself. He is self-communing. John Piper says this is a crucial lesson for Christians to learn. In his sermon on Psalm 42, he brought up Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, an influential preacher of the 20th century. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a book titled “Spiritual Depression”, and he believes that talking to oneself is important to overcoming spiritual depression. Commenting on Psalm 42, he wrote, “Have you realised that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? The psalmist’s soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.”
I believe we all do some sort of self-talking. But as we talked about earlier, because we are affected by sin, we can have sinful responses to our circumstances. Thus, while it seems counter-intuitive, there is a need to learn self-talk that is godly.
In the timeline of salvation history, what stands between the psalmist and you, is the cross. So, what would the content of self-talk be? What do you preach to yourself?
Preach the gospel, God’s promises and about the suffering Saviour to yourself.
You preach the gospel to yourself.
You preach God’s promises to yourself.
You preach about the Suffering Saviour to yourself.
On this side of the cross, Jesus is our hope. In Psalm 43:3, the psalmist calls upon God to “send out your light and your truth; let them lead me”. When I read this verse, I cannot help but think of our Lord Jesus. In John 8:12, Jesus says about himself, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” In John 14:7, again Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me… from now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Jesus is our light and our truth.
The psalmist asks the question, “When shall I come and appear before God?” God has given us the answer in Jesus. God has indeed sent out His Light and Truth to us, to lead us to Himself. We have this benefit over the psalmist. Jesus has come to rescue us, to bring us to the Father. We who are in Christ, know the Father and have seen Him.
In the midst of your distress, anxieties, sorrow, frustration, confusion — look to the cross. What is sure and secure is the Father’s love for you. Nothing can take that away. That is what our hope is. That is what gives us any fighting chance against spiritual depression.
Tell yourself, yes, the world is terribly broken, but our Lord Jesus has come! While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! By grace, we have been justified. We have been reconciled to a holy God and we now live as daughters of the King! The King who will come and make all things new! Our hope is in God because He is sovereign over all things and we know all things work together for good for those who love Him.
But don’t stop there. Preach to yourself too that your suffering is not in vain. Because I serve a Suffering Saviour, I will experience suffering too in this earthly life.
Many of you know, I am married to Jeremy and we have been blessed with four children. But Jeremy and I know the Lord has in fact blessed us with six. Between Athanasius and Basil, we suffered two miscarriages, one after another. I was spiritually depressed for about six months or so. I turned to Scripture looking for answers for my suffering. I read through many verses about suffering. Sadly, I did not find peace. I was most “annoyed” with James 1:2 which says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds…”
I tried to talk to my soul. But it would always end up going like this, “Count it all joy. Ok, how do I count it all joy? How is there joy in going through miscarriages? To lose a baby that is part of you from the moment he was conceived? To see a tiny heart stop beating on the ultrasound machine? How is there joy, Lord? How can you say that to me, James? How can you exhort me to count it all joy? How is it humanly possible? I can’t do it. I can’t.”
And I would end up in tears. Again. I sought the Lord in tears during those months. I knew there was nothing else for me to do. I could only cling on to the Lord, His Word and His promises. Eventually, I healed. And it was not an overnight thing or an a-ha moment. No, it was a long, slow process of healing and dwelling in God’s Word even when it did not make sense in my troubled state. The Holy Spirit took His time with me.
I realised eventually, I was looking for peace in the wrong place. There are two more verses that follow after, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (Jas 1:2-4)
The trial I went through, the miscarriages, are part of the testing of my faith. So that having gone through that, steadfastness is produced. And when we have a steadfast faith in God, we will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. As painful and distressing as they are, trials and afflictions refine our faith and we are becoming more like Jesus.
Sisters, I am sure many of you have gone through testing of your faith too. Tell yourself that your suffering is not in vain. As you go through it trusting wholly in Jesus, your faith will prove to be steadfast and this steadfastness is God’s purpose for you.
So let us go to our God our exceeding joy, our salvation, and praise Him!
When we come to the end of this poem, nothing has changed for the psalmist outwardly. He is still exiled, still far from Jerusalem. But inwardly, his heart has changed. After admitting to himself and to God that he is not okay, after remembering God’s attributes and after preaching truths to his soul, the psalmist has found peace. His peace is found in hoping in God his Saviour. We will do well to follow the psalmist’s example. But we can also do better, that is, to look to Jesus.
Spiritual depression can be very personal and lonely. But it does not have to be.
We know in Hebrews 4:15, Christ is our brother, our great high priest who can sympathize with us (Heb 4:15). He has lived through our human experiences of temptations and suffering so we can truly find comfort in Him.
But we are also part of the family of Christ.
Paul exhorts us in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Paul writes that “…God is the Father of mercies and God of all comfort…who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
Did you hear that? God is the one who comforts us so that we may comfort others with that same comfort from God.
When I had my second miscarriage, I found myself in the hospital, recovering from a procedure to clean out my womb. I was still trying to come to terms what had just taken place medically, when the door opened and in came a dear sister in Christ. She had been like a mother to me. She comforted me and loved me well throughout my affliction. Besides preaching God’s truths to me, she brought a home-cooked meal for me even though she knew there was food provided by the hospital. She also gave me a thermos of rooibos tea. As I sipped that warm rooibos tea, it instantly warmed my weary body, but also my broken heart and soul.
Consider how you can journey alongside others who are experiencing discouragement, or sorrow. Love them fiercely that they may know it’s okay to not be okay in front of you. Help them remember God’s faithfulness and love for them in Christ. Preach to them the hope we have in the gospel. This is what biblical personal ministry looks like — bringing comfort to a world where suffering is a constant reality.