Beginning a Study of Psalm 42 and
Psalm 43
Psalm 42:1-8--As the deer pants for
the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for
the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears
have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, Where is
your God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within
me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of
God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim
feast. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted
within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His
countenance. o my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will
remember You from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from
the Hill Mizar. Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all
Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His
lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me--a
prayer to the God of my life.
A retired missionary who was trying
to make ends meet received a crisp new ten
dollar bill in a letter. She was surprised, but as she read the letter
her eyes were distracted by the movement of a shabbily dressed stranger leaning
in front of the building. Thinking he might be in greater financial
stress than she, she slipped the bill in an envelope on which she penned “Don’t
despair.” The man tipped his hat, and smiled. The next day he
showed up at the door and handed her 60 dollars. “Why?” He replied:
Don’t Despair paid five to one. Well now that was the name of a
horse. But I want you to see the reality of hope today. There was a man
on a raft for almost eighty days. The thing that kept the man alive after
his ship sunk was hope. His lowest days were when he could see no hope
and he could not see the possibility of being rescued or making it to the
islands or coming into the shipping lanes and being found by one of the vessels
on the trade routes. His hope kept him alive. Someone has said: “We
can live forty days without food, eight days without water, four minutes
without air, but only a few seconds without hope.”
As we approach Psalm 42 and 43,
think over these questions:
1. Can a Christian be discouraged or
depressed?
2. Are their examples in the Bible of
believers who were discouraged?
3. What
does an unsaved person normally do to overcome discouragement?
Psalms 42 & 43 point the way to
hope & victory over discouragement and depression. The Psalmist suggests
that some radical changes in outlook on life must take place. Today, we
will give some practical reflections on the text as we consider one
outlook change:
I. First Outlook Change: Stop
looking within yourself and start looking at God!
A. The Problem: The
Psalmist was looking at himself to solve his problems (42:1-7)
1. Note 51 personal pronouns (“I” 14 times, “me” 16 times, and “my” 21 times)
2. Depression had occurred because his feelings had not been relieved
(42:3). Perhaps you have heard The
psalm in a hotel room:
I’m alone Lord, alone, a thousand
miles from home. There’s no one here who knows my name except the clerk
and he spelled it wrong, no one to eat dinner with laugh at my jokes, listen to
my gripes, be happy with me about what happened today, and say that’s
great. Non one cares. There’s just this lousy bed and slush in the street
outside between the buildings. I feel sorry for myself and I’ve plenty of
reason to. Maybe I ought to say I’m on top of it, praise the Lord things
are great but they’re not. Tonight it’s all gray slush.
3. Discouragement had come because his
plans had not been fulfilled (42:4). A 65 year-old recently retired man
was sitting on his porch in Kentucky waiting for his social security
check. It came and then he thought that is all I am going to do now for
the rest of my life. He was discouraged, but since he was a Christian he
took a pad of paper and began writing down all the gifts, all the blessings,
all the talents, and everything he had going for him at age 65. He even
included his mother’s recipe for fried chicken in which she used eleven
different herbs and spices. Then he thought, I could go to the little
restaurant in town and ask if they could use a cook, and I could cook my
mother’s chicken. It soon was the most popular item on the menu, and he
opened his own restaurant in this small town, and I have been to that little restaurant.
Several years later, he sold that restaurant and the chain of restaurants
started to a big corporation for millions of dollars, and then served as their
public representative. His name was Harlan Sanders, and the company he sold was
KFC. With hope placed firmly in God, discouragement becomes
victory.
4. Frustration occurred as questions were
not answered (42:5-7)
The Psalmist admits that he was so
busy looking at himself that he forgot to look at God. This even happened
to Elijah (I Kings 19:4). There are times when we should examine
ourselves, but it is dangerous to do that too much. Even nature’s beauty
failed to give the Psalmist peace as he was drowning in his own trials and
troubles (42:6-7)
B. The Solution: Daily look at God and to God (42:8)
1. When Jesus looked at nature, He
saw the Father’s love and care (Matt. 6:24-34)
2. The Psalmist finally remembers that God is with Him
day and night, and that God must truly be the “God of my life.” (42:8)
The most important thing about any
difficult experience is not that we get out of it, but what we get out of
it. If we are thirsting after God, and not just His help and deliverance,
then the experience that could cause us depression will actually build us
up. Instead of complaining, we will be praying and praising God.
Life will not be a mirror in which we see only ourselves, it will be a window
through which we see God. And
this starts at conversion. John Wesley accepted Christ with some Moravians,
and yet he did not have the joy that he felt he should have. He knew he
was saved by faith in Christ, but the joy he saw in others was not his.
He eventually went to Germany to study with the brethren there, and it was
there that the joy of the Lord became his strength. It was there that he let go
of being self-centered—how does it all help me, to being God
centered—serving God brought the joy.
It will for you also.
More tomorrow on Psalm 42 & 43 . . .
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