FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

The Delight of the Psalmist

“Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” Now drink in verse 8. “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.” In verse 11 he sings, “Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”

The psalmist was willing to rest his case with God, to lay it at His feet. Those troubles only led him to God. Do your troubles, discouragement, and depression lead you to God? Do they cause you to fall on your knees and come to God? In the darkest hours He is able to reveal His best to you and to me. We are to delight in God. Our faith and hope are undergirded with strong convictions. In verse 6 he wrote, “I will remember You from the land of the Jordan.” He recalled when he went into the house of God. He reminisced about what God had done in his life in the past. If you look into the past and merely see yourself, then you will begin to contrast those circumstances you’ve been through, and your depression will worsen. But if you look in the past and remember what God has done for and in you, then God will use that to help you delight in Him.

The answer to depression is hope, and our hope is not in ourselves but in God. He speaks of delighting not only in the hope of God but also in the help of God. Each time the psalmist mentioned hope, he also spoke of the Lord’s help. “For I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” In verse 11 he spoke of God “the help of my countenance.” The thought here is that God’s face is never marked with disappointment. God is never discouraged.

The psalmist frankly laid the issue before the Lord Himself. The moment he admitted that he had an unfulfilled desire, he began to delight in the Lord, and was on the way to recovery. God’s song would be with him, and his prayer would be unto God in the night as he wrote in verse 8. If you wait for the daylight it may never come. In the dungeon of depression, in the night, may God’s song be in your heart, and may your prayer be unto Him.

How will you face your depression? Endure it? Escape it? Or learn from it? William Cowper wrote numerous poems and hymn lyrics. Many folks do not understand that William Cowper was constantly besieged by depression, and many times even endeavored to commit suicide. Yet, Cowper wrote these words:

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mind Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs, And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take:
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

His purpose will ripen fast, unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

Despair. He knew it, but he also knew that in the midst of the night, God was there.

What is your desire? Is it for God? Whether you know it or not, it is. Whether you admit it or not, the longing, the frustration, the emptiness, the searching of your heart is for God, He created us to have that longing deep within. Despair may overwhelm you at times. Troubles and trials may overwhelm you, but if you will delight yourself in the Lord in the night, in that darkness, God will bless you in the midst of the experiences when Satan intends to tear you down.

The best holiday gift you can have/give: Clinging to Jesus as a cure for depression and despair, not in all of our schemes and all of our strength, but in thirsty and panting desire to have Jesus supreme in our hearts!

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

The Despair of the Psalmist – Continued

John the Baptist became dreadfully depressed. He certainly had valid reasons. John was in prison and eventually was beheaded for his preaching. He was “the second Elijah,” the “forerunner” to the Messiah, who had, upon seeing Jesus, authoritatively announced, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). He who had preached Jesus began to doubt Jesus. In the Gospel of Matthew we find:

“And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (Matthew 11:2-3).

Can you imagine that? The man who had preached with an exclamation point now queried with a question mark.

He was down in that moment, but Jesus did not reprimand him. In fact, it is amazing that on the day when John the Baptist said the worst thing he had ever said about Jesus, Jesus said the best thing He ever said about John the Baptist! Jesus praised John with:

“Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).

When the prophet was caught in the trap of discouragement and despair, Jesus added the most unfamiliar Beatitude in the Bible. In fact, if I asked you to list all of the Beatitudes you would never think of this one, “And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” (Matthew 11:6). Here is a twentieth-century translation of that. “Blessed is he who does not become upset by how I run my business.” The Lord is running His business on schedule, carrying out His program according to His plans and His specification. God does not operate on our timetable, and sometimes it does not add up in our computers. But God is still in control, and we need to realize we can trust Him. We cannot always trace God, but we can always trust Him.

Many Christians themselves are in the dungeon of despair. It may be illness or bereavement. It may be your heart lies in the grave. It may be financial; it may be relationships. “Iron bars do not a prison make,” and we find ourselves in the cage of despair.

I do not understand everything God does or why He does it, but I refuse to be upset with how He does it. I refuse to find in Him a stumbling block. Isaiah 8:14 states that you will either perceive in God a sanctuary or a snare, a stumbling block or a snare on the one side but sustenance on the other side. God will either be to you a problem or a profit. If you try to explain God’s strategies with your logic, and you demand that God satisfy your reason, then God is going to be a snare to you. I choose to locate in Him a sanctuary.

The psalmist was extremely depressed. Great people of God over the years have faced the same kind of experience. It is not wrong to be depressed. Read of Jesus’ emotions in the garden of Gethsemane, and you will discover discouragement and depression. “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). He cried, He wept tears freely. It’s what you do with depression, how you handle it, how you act and react in the midst of it.

We have first the psalmist’s desire, his basic need. Then he painted a picture of despair. But then the psalmist speaks of his delight.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

The Despair of the Psalmist – Continued

The important thought about your depression is not that you get out of it but what you get out of it. What do you learn from it? If your heart genuinely desires God, then the experience that could tear you down will actually build you up! (Romans 8:28). The darkness of depression eventually can become the most fruitful time of your life.

I heard that plants do not grow in the daytime but at night. They receive the supply of the sun and the atmosphere in the daytime, and at night they expand and grow. This is also true of individuals. Your most significant growth is not when all is rosy. We do not grow in the sunlight but rather in the darkness of life. Everybody desires the “mountain-top” experiences, but our real growth happens down below, in the valleys.

So, what can a Christian do amid despair? The victorious Christian life is not without struggle. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 reminded us that we are in a spiritual warfare, a serious business. Many of God’s greatest leaders have fought with depression, and God was able to use that depression. Martin Luther, the founder of the Reformation, was known to have deep fits of depression. Nothing would help, even when he was able to translate the Bible into German. Listen to his own words:

“For more than a week I was close to the gates of death and hell. I trembled in all of my members. Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and by blasphemy of God.”

Does that sound to you like a hero of the faith? Depressed. Discouraged. Yet, Luther also confessed that depression was beneficial, for he said without those experiences no one can understand scriptural faith and the fear and love of God. In other words, if we never were depressed we would never realize God could help us with it. It can become a precious opportunity for us to discover God.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, extolled as one of the greatest preachers of all time, was often “down in the pits.” In the latter years of his life he spent months at a time on the French Riviera to escape from the pressures that complicated his life, and most of the time he was physically and emotionally in despair. Spurgeon wrote a letter to his church after being gone several months. Part of it went:

“The furnace still glows around me. Since I last preached to you I have been brought very low. My flesh has been tortured with pain and my spirit has been prostrate with depression. With some difficulty I write these lines in my bed, mingling them with the groans of pain and the songs of hope. I am as a potter’s vessel when it is utterly broken, useless and laid aside. Nights of watching and days of weeping have been mine, but I hope the cloud is passing. There are dungeons, beneath the castle of despair.”

He often found himself in those dungeons.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

The Despair of the Psalmist

My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, “Where is your God?”

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.

Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.

I will say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? (Psalm 42:3, 5-7, 9-11).

A horrid picture of despair! This psalm gives us a clue to most of our depression. Oftentimes, depression is selfish, when we focus on ourselves too much, when we begin to dwell on our problems, our needs, our wants, our desires. In verse 4 the psalmist was upset because his plans were not fulfilled. He wanted to return to the house of God, and he couldn’t. In the previous he was “bluer than blue.” His feelings needed improving. He was in the midst of the people but apparently was extremely lonely. He seemed to cry all the time. He literally drank or ate his tears. “My tears have been my food day and night.” Throughout both Psalms 42 and 43, he wanted his questions answered, his plans fulfilled, and his feelings improved. In fact, in the sixteen verses of these psalms, the psalmist asks “why” ten times. In one instance he asked “when” once and “where” twice, thirteen questions in total. He merely wanted his questions answered.

He was so wrapped up in himself that he had trouble seeing God. If you want to stay depressed, major on yourself alone. Examine yourself, think of yourself more than others. This will absolutely keep the cycle going.

His emotions had become ingrown. “My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, ‘Where is your God?’ ” He was a grown man, but his tear ducts were overactive. How often our tears reflect the depression and the discouragement we feel. Floods of tears he describes. He moaned about “the noise of God’s waterfalls.” Verse 7 refers to the turmoil of a river flooding and monstrous rapids and cataracts boiling and churning. Then he gives a gripping picture of an overwhelming flood that inundates him, “all Your waves and billows have gone over me.” That phrase is almost the same as Jonah used (Jonah 2:3) when he lamented, “All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.” He next refers to floods of trouble. “Deep calls unto deep” is as if he saw a wave rolling down the river with another right behind, with the one in front calling out to the one in back. Floods of trouble plagued him. Then there were floods of testing. In verses 9-10 his enemies reared their gross heads, asking, “Where is your God?” He was tested at the point of his faith. The committed Christian faces this today. “Where is your God? Why does He allow you to suffer like this? Why doesn’t He come to your rescue? Doesn’t He care? Is He unable to do it? Where is your God?” All the psalmist could do was weep and suffer and long for a visitation from God.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

The Desire of the Psalmist

“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” (Psalm 42:1-4).

His basic desire, first of all, was to have a heart for God. Within his heart there was a consuming passion to have spiritual intimacy with God, to feel Him, to sense His presence in an intimate way. I am convinced every individual has that same desire and longing. The person separated from the grace of God, who has not received eternal life, may not be aware there is an emptiness in his life that only God can fill. Those of us who have been saved through the experience of conviction, repentance, and faith, know that what we really need in our lives is the Lord. The writer’s desire was to once again be able to worship in the house of the Lord, sensing close to his heart the presence of the Lord.

The question for many of us is, does God hear us? Does God really intervene in our lives? Can God honestly make a difference? Remember that Jesus invites:

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38).

As the classic hymn says, “O yes, He cares, I know He cares, His heart is touched with my grief.” Absolutely.

Every person who hungers and thirsts after God’s kingdom will gather the bounty of God’s response. Billions have cried, thirsting for Him, and He has met their needs, and He will continue to do it for us today. Also, the psalmist’s desire was not only for the presence of God but also for the house of God. In verse 4 he remembered a vast procession winding its way to the house of God. There were jubilant songs of praise to God going to and in the house of worship. In Psalm 43 there is a similar situation:

“Let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle. Then I will go to the altar of God . . . and on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God” (Psalm 43:3-4).

God intends for us to have a place where we worship together. The entire history of human relationship with God refers to sacred places where people commune with God. Sometimes it was in the isolation of a Jacob at Bethel, but it still involved a sacred place. When you have a longing for God, you will also pine for His house, for the fellowship of other believers. Remember His house is not the one built with human hands (see Acts 7:48-50; Hebrews 9:24).

Love for God that does not result in a corresponding love for His house and His people is unnatural. God has commanded us to gather together. The born-again believer is inextricably joined to his spiritual brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. We are many members, but we are “all one” and we, the body, need to be united (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27). In spite of the psalmist’s discouragement, he had a burning desire for God and His place of worship.

We cannot minimize corporate worship. When we meet together we draw strength from one another. First there is a desire. This man recognized he had a deep desire for the things of God.

Then, continuing on this psalm speaks about the despair of the psalmist.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

Scripture Reference: Psalm 42

Believe me, depression is a normal part of our lives. Rain, for instance, is absolutely essential for health and life on this planet, but we wouldn’t want rain all the time. Right? When there is too little rain, parching drought is the result. When there is too much rain, there is flooding, and we are overwhelmed with it. Yet, we need some rain. We can’t have all sunshine. We also must have night. God set it up where we have daylight and darkness. So both darkness and daylight are necessary. We need balance. Without balance there is chaos and God separated the chaos for a reason in the beginning of our creation story.

But the problems still arise. There is a normal depression we will experience in the course of our lives, but it becomes abnormal when it lingers without abatement, and sometimes nothing we can do helps. Everything we try seems to make it worse. When it hangs on, then the depression gets out of hand. Most of us can readily identify with the psalmist in this matter, and we need to examine it. How does the Christian reach up from despair? How does the Christian yearn for God when we don’t feel like yearning?

The Christian has supernatural resources the non-Christian does not have. When an unsaved individual comes to discouragement, despair, and depression, he may use drugs, alcohol, recreation, or sex as escape valves. But the unbeliever finds that when he tries to escape into these devices, ultimately he has not escaped himself and must face himself. In fact, his escapist tactics only become links in a chain that strengthens the imprisonment he has experienced. Escapism only forges another link in that chain. But the Christian does have resources he can call upon, and that is the main principle of this inspired psalm.

Now this is for sure from the very start. Making us feel guilty because we are discouraged or depressed is not the answer; in fact it is a trick or tool of the enemy. It only drives us further into depression. Our emotions can’t and don’t change on command. If I tell you, “Don’t feel depressed,” that is an impossible command. The answer is not trying to feel bad because we feel bad; not becoming depressed because we are depressed. All of that compounds the problem.

There are times when our depression has physical causes and ought to have medical attention. For instance, certain forms of illness can cause depression. Erratic blood pressure, abnormal blood sugar, and other chemical imbalances can contribute to depression. We also need to remember that our brain is a physical organ just like our other organs and there are natural things that can affect it. When there is acute or severe depression, a competent Christian counselor ought to be enlisted. But there are steps all of us can take to overcome depression. Just as surely as night follows day, all of us have periods of discouragement. So depression and discouragement are a normal part of our lives, but they can become a wedge to drive us away from God, to separate us from those we love, and to destroy our lives. That has always been the enemy’s tactic; to destroy relationships.

However, there is practical, applicable help in this psalm. There are three things that I want to show you in this psalm. First of all, there is the desire of the psalmist.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

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

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved