Psalm 42 – http://tinyurl.com/htjpcdz

What if they don’t come? What if I’m stuck up here forever? What if I die up here? But they are coming. But what if they don’t? what if I’m stuck like this? what if I can’t work? But I know they are coming. What if they drop me? What if I have to get down this mountain myself?

Those are the questions that were running through my head on the 15^th of April 2015, stuck up a hill in the Scottish countryside; in in a storm, with a leg broken in 4 places. Having been stuck up there for 2 hours waiting for mountain rescue you can imagine that not everything going through my head was positive.  A good friend and good Doctor was with me and over the course of 2 hours’ distress kept calmly reminding me, the paramedics were on their way, help was coming. Without a voice of reason telling me the truth that help was on its way, I would have lost all perspective and been in complete despair. Knowing that rescue is coming doesn’t take away the pain, but it does give you hope that a time without pain will come. Sometimes remembering hope is the toughest of battles, and you have to force yourself to remember what is true.

Thankfully few of us have been through something as directly traumatic as limb fracture and mountain rescue, but there are a lot of times when hope seems hard to find. When pain and suffering comes life can be a battle for perspective in remembering hope, telling ourselves the truth and trusting in God. Part of the process of maturing as a Christian is learning the discipline of remembering the truth and applying hope when we feel far from God, and suffering feels immense. We learn to tell our souls what is true, when they wander off in search of other things.

Psalm 42, as with many of the psalms speaks right into the heart of human experience. This psalm deals with the reality of feeling far from God, what it’s like to thirst for God, how we experience grief and the strange tension between suffering and hope. The psalmist speaks about the state of his soul, his inner being, describing it through the psalms as: thirsty, poured out, and downcast. We find him not only crying out to God in his distress but also speaking to his own soul, applying the truth to it, and remembering hope.

The psalm is written by one of the sons of Korah, one of the temple psalmists from Jerusalem. However, we find him located far away from the temple almost 100 miles north, away in the upper land of the Jordan river. We are not told why he is far away, but it seems that he is being prevented from returning to Israel, and being mocked by the people around him. Being separated from the temple and God’s manifest presence he feels the anxiety of separation.

In order to understand this psalm, we are going to look at it in three parts; first in verses 1-4 where the psalmist describes his thirst for God, then verses 6-10 where the psalmist grieves the distance he feels from God and finally we will look at the refrain in this psalm found in verse 5 and in verse 11 where the Psalmist finds hope for his soul in God. A thirsty soul, a downcast soul and a hopeful soul.

 

A thirsty soul

I don’t know if you have ever been dehydrated, it’s like thirst gone native. Your body stops feeling thirsty but starts feeling physically sick, you become light headed and unable to think properly, all you can do is follow your body’s deep seated need for water. Real dehydration is a matter health and at its worst, a matter of life and death.

The psalm opens with the psalmist describing what this thirst in his soul is like. He describes it like a deer panting for flowing water. We might not think much of that, coming from an ever drenched Scotland that has never seen hide nor hair of a dehydrated deer. But in Israel, in the dry season, the height of summer, the land is arid and dusty. A deer that can’t find water is in deep distress, a flowing stream of life sustaining water is vital. It’s that kind of intense longing that the psalmist feels for God. He is far from the temple, far away from the direct presence of the Lord, and he is in distress, longing for the living God.

This separation from the temple isn’t the psalmists only trouble however. It seems that he is being taunted by the people around him for being far from God. See verse 3

‘My tears have been my food day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

The psalmist is having sleepless nights because of his distress from those taunting and mocking him. We can hear in this the feeling of injustice and pain, this is the language of real suffering. But this therefore is language we can relate to. Many of us will have had sleepless nights; kept up by stress, the trouble and anxiety of life. We may even be able to empathise more directly with the psalmist; having experienced the anxiety of feeling far from God. When I read this I find myself thankful that my bible contains this, that God’s word speaks both to the realities of anxiety and suffering but also to the reasons we feel them.

So what does the psalmist think is the cure for a thirsty soul? How does he begin to respond to this distress? His first step, we find in verse 4, is to remember. The thirsty soul remembers. As he pours out his soul to God in prayer he actively recalls what he is missing. Being one of the psalmists of the temple would be quite a position. The responsibility of leading the temple worshippers in procession into the temple to perform their sacrifices and worship the lord. We need only look to how important our praise leaders are in church to begin to get an idea of how important this role was in the temple. And it was a role that the psalmist took great joy in. He reminds himself of the height of this joy, leading the praises of God’s people at festival time, surrounded by shouts of joy and praise.

This is the first step for the thirsty soul, to remember the joy of serving the lord in times past. Whilst it cannot call in to being the event and the emotion it gives the psalmist perspective and helps him to remember what is true. Remembering times of joy when in distress is a double edged sword; it can comfort but it also heightens the sense of loss. However, these memories are important, the psalmist sees them as a tool for dealing with his distress and giving him hope. It is this remembrance that leads to the first hopeful refrain of the psalm.

I wonder how good we are at retaining perspective when we suffer? I know personally that I can start to see the world in shades of black when things go wrong. One of the things God blesses us with however is our experiences of joy; that when trouble and suffering comes, often the first step towards hope, is remembering our joy in God in times past. These things are meant to be a comfort for our souls and are something we must keep in mind. As Christians we are called to strong memories in remembering the works of the lord, not just in history but in our own lives. That is the first part of the psalm, a thirsty soul.

 

A downcast soul

No matter how strong the re-assurances of a friend; after 2 hours of pain, soaked to the skin, chilled to the bone; you really seriously begin to doubt the availability of a mountain rescue team. Have they just forgotten? Maybe the helicopter has crashed? Maybe the weather is just too bad? You KNOW that help is coming, but you keep asking those questions, the tension and turmoil still remains.

What we get in verses 6 to 10 is an insight into the turmoil that the psalmists mind is in. He knows that God is with him, even when he is far from the temple, but that thought isn’t necessarily taking away his distress. In these verses the Lord is the God of steadfast love, but also the one who has brought the psalmist waves of distress. In the one sentence of verse 9 he calls God his rock but asks ‘why have you forgotten me?’. This is the turmoil and the distress of knowing that God is present in suffering yet crying out ‘where are you?!’. If you haven’t found yourself crying out to God like that in your life that I can almost guarantee that one day you will. This is a downcast soul, filled with grief.

This part of the psalm starts, as the last part finished, with the psalmist remembering God. He shows his distance from the temple as he looks south to Jerusalem from mount Hermon in the north. The second water analogy in this psalm is in verse 7. This time the psalmist describes his troubles with the language of deep waters, follow along verse 7:

Deep calls to deep, at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.  

It’s remarkable how common certain analogies are to humanity; how often people use the language of being swept up in their problems or drowning in troubles. This is the language the psalmist uses to describe his grief at the circumstances the Lord has brought him. When under pressure though, the psalmist refuses to forget his God. In verse 8 he again affirms that he prays to God, and that the steadfast love of God is with him; even seemingly singing psalms to remind himself of God; a tradition not lost in the church today. He is remarkably clear, he doesn’t blame God for his trouble, but that God has brought these circumstances to him, God is very much in control even when his life feels chaotic.

The strongest example of grief in this psalm is in verses 9 and 10.  God is his rock but his soul says ‘why have you forgotten me?’. He is oppressed and mocked by enemies, who are asking ‘where is your God?’. His grief is as deep as to the point of calling it a deadly wound in his bones. Undoubtedly the pressure the psalmist faced from his enemies brought him into deep distress was immense. But notice whilst he questions God’s presence and action, he doesn’t question his existence or his character. This is a downcast soul that still believes, grief and trust running side by side.

I think many people will find that very unusual, the idea that a person could be in deep distress, questioning the presence of God and yet still believe and trust firmly that God is good and is at work. It’s a supposition the world doesn’t like at all, but it’s one that is right at the heart of the Christian experience. Grief and trust are not in opposition, in fact much of the time they go hand in hand; sometimes it’s only in the deepest distress that we find the most vital dependence on God. We live in a different age to the psalmist, there is no longer a temple for us to long for; In Christ we simply couldn’t be closer to God. But that doesn’t mean we always feel that way. We may share similar experiences with the psalmist, a multiplicity of troubles, even mockery for our faith; trying circumstances that we will all face. And yet the psalmist still has hope, and how he finds it, will teach us how we must seek God when the turmoil of faith and grief comes to us. The psalmist truly understands the reality of a downcast soul.

 

A hopeful soul

Finally then, the refrain in verses 5 and 11, how we find hope for our soul:

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.

The first step for the psalmist was to speak the truth of his distress, the second to remember God, the third then is to apply truth to his soul. This refrain really crystallises the feeling of the whole psalm. The downcast soul of the psalmist is met with hope of his saviour God. What is the answer to the psalmist’s distress and grief? The truth of about God.

The psalmist here does something that some people today would consider basically impossible. He speaks to and commands his own soul. The modern world says – ‘what matters is your feelings; you are subject to your emotions’. The word of God says ‘your mind is subject to you, take control of your soul’. The psalmist is questioning his soul and its turmoil, as legitimate as its concerns are; and commanding it to hope in God.

For a world caught utterly at the whim of its own desires how refreshing to find the Psalms sees life quite differently. We must learn the truth of this psalm and develop a discipline that we often lack, of speaking truth to our own souls and bringing them in line with God’s word. I say this is a discipline because clearly even within this psalm it is something the psalmist has to battle with and fight for. The inner turmoil caused by the friction between grief and hope can be massive. The way hope will hold out is by constant application of the truth.

 

Speaking to our souls

How quickly we forget the cross. How often we find our souls have worked through and concluded our thoughts on a situation whilst, completely bypassing the truth of the gospel. I think this is especially true of our reactions to suffering. When in distress it is so easy to ask ‘where is God?’ without applying the truth of his presence. We present God less honestly than the psalmist does, if we are willing to count him absent in our sufferings. Our greatest example, far above the admirable attitude of the psalmist is in Christ. He is the only one who has ever been truly forsaken when we see him on the cross shouting ‘My God My God, why have you forsaken me’. He bore the price of separation from God on our behalf. When we are anxious, when we find ourselves in distress and turmoil then we must turn to Christ. Only he truly understands the distress of separation from God that we sometimes feel. What we can learn from the psalmist we can learn further from Christ. A life of knowing the truth and applying it to our hearts. Living by it even in our deepest distress and grief. This life however is one of hope, that even in the darkest pit, the greatest trouble and the most fearful anxiety there is hope for our souls in the true and living God. A hope to be found in Christ alone.

So that’s Psalm 42, a comforting one that deals with the reality of life. I wonder if you’re not a Christian, how you read that psalm? Ask yourself, what do you turn to in distress, and do you see your own suffering as a barrier between you and God? The bible certainly doesn’t, in fact is says that they go hand in hand: so what is your hope? If you are a believer lets nurture this discipline of seeking our hope God in times of trouble, and always applying the truth of Christ to our hearts.