Scripture Reference: Psalm 42
Coming upon the holidays through the next couple of months (end of 2024), it’s not unusual in the least for people to experience that “blue” period in life. Let’s call it what it is: depression. We tend to get excited initially and our adrenaline starts flowing freely during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s season, but when the season is over, it feels like we take a fall in our emotions. This is nothing new to mankind.
That old song “Am I Blue?” could easily have been written by the psalmist. In Psalms 42 and 43, which could have easily been one psalm, the psalmist was “in the pits” as it were. You name it, it’s apparent that he was depressed, disappointed, discouraged, down, stressed out. He was feeling “mighty low.”
This psalm lays before us two aspects for every believer’s life. On the one hand we are called to begin living in eternity (while still in the natural) with our minds and hearts set on God; on the other, we are also commanded to live in time with our minds and bodies under pressures that cannot and should not be ignored. How can we possibly do both? This psalm instructs us to take seriously both of these aspects in our lives. It is always tragic when a person seems to lie separated from the presence of God. It is sad when a person who once walked with God intimately seems to backslide into their former ways and then no longer senses His presence and the deep joy that flows from that presence.
In the context of both psalms we view not only a heart hungering for God but also literally gasping for worship in the sanctuary. For whatever reason, the psalmist who wrote these words was separated from the presence of God’s people. Sometimes illness, infirmity, or other circumstances will keep us from fellowship and worship. When a person drifts away from God, and God doesn’t seem as precious, or close to him as before, it is doubly sad. There is severe cause for alarm and concern when such is the situation. What happens many times, and we have all experienced it, is that suddenly we realize how spiritually thirsty we actually are, and how desperately we miss that close, intimate presence of God. There is an emptiness and a dissatisfaction when we wander away from the Lord and we no longer walk in companionship with and obedience to Him.
Psalm 42 is a portrait of an individual who was climbing from the depths to the heights. This is where most Americans are. Depression has become epidemic; I’d almost go on to say, pandemic. Statistics tell us there are at least 2,000 suicides every day in the world. In the United States alone there are more than four million people who require special medical help for depression, many times very severe, every year. All of this is especially relevant to our relationship with God. How does it all come and work together?
Our enemy, Satan, wants to discourage us and will do all he can to make us despair. He throws his monkey wrench into our lives at every opportunity. Having to live in a hostile world doesn’t help, does it? Living and working around people who don’t give a rip for God certainly is not easy. With the availability of instant news on television, radio and social media, a person can’t escape much of the onslaught that comes straight on. There are many factors besides the news that add to our depression; then many Christians add to their guilt by feeling they shouldn’t be depressed! Even the greatest men of God were depressed at one time or another.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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