Downcast, Disturbed, Discouraged, Depressed (Psalm 42-43)

In Psalm 42-43, the writer felt overwhelmed and discouraged.

1. Do you long for God as a deer pants for water (Ps 42:1-2)?
• Do you long for God more in good times or in hard times? 
• Do you long more for something else or for God? For answers [Why? Why? (Ps 42:5, 9, 11; 43:2, 5)] or for God Himself?
• Do you need to reach the end of yourself before repenting and truly seeking God?
2. Why is the psalmist so sad and sorrowful, so down and depressed "day and night" (Ps 42:3, 10)? What does he remember (Ps 42:4, 6)? In the O.T. what does it mean to remember (Dt 8:2-3)? To forget (Dt 8:11)? As Christians what should we remember (1 Cor 15:10)?
3. What should you do and not do when feeling down (Ps 42:5, 11; 43:5)?
• How can you "Put your hope in God" practically and existentially when you are discouraged (Rev 12:10; 2 Cor 10:5; Phil 4:8; Rom 15:13; 8:24-25; Ps 46:1, 2-3; Heb 11:1; Tit 1:1-2; 1 Jn 3:3)?
• Do you distinguish between listening to yourself OR talking to yourself?
4. Where was he (Ps 42:6b)? What was his situation (Ps 42:7; Jon 2:3)? What did he do about his painful situation "by day" and "at night" (Ps 42:8, 3; Isa 43:2)?
5. What is he expressing and to whom (Ps 42:9; 43:2; 13:1-2; 38:1, 9, 15, 21-22)? Why is this important (Ps 88:1-2)?
6. What is his prayer (Ps 43:1, 3)? Why (Ps 43:4)? What does he affirm about God (Ps 43:2a)? Why does he repeatedly ask "why" (Ps 43:2, 5; 42:5, 9, 11)? Is he doubting God? Disappointed by God? Depressed? Downcast? Discouraged? Disturbed?

• How do you cope with being downcast, disturbed, depressed? What do you long for when you are overwhelmed? 
• What can you learn from the psalmist about how to respond to seasons of difficulty? Biblically? Theologically? Practically?

Downcast, Disturbed and Discouraged (Psalm 42-43):

1. The drought (42:1-5): thirsty. Looking back: God in the past. A remembrance of the past.
2. The depths (42:6-11): drowning. Looking around: God in the present. A reflection of the present.
3. The release (43:1-5): deliverance. Looking ahead: God in the future. An anticipation of God's presence and deliverance.

Psalm 42-43 is one of the most sadly beautiful of the psalms.

• Refrain: "Self-talk" (Ps 42:5, 11; 43:5) is to recall the ground for faith and hope. God is my Savior. Thus, the reason for hope and praise. But when we listen to ourselves, we tend to dwell on bad news. But when we speak to our souls, we have an opportunity to dwell on gospel truth.
• Quote: "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?" Martyn-Lloyd Jones. [Full quote below.]
• Note: 9 times the question "Why" rings out in Psalm 42-43: Ps 42:5, 9, 11; 43:2, 5.
• Warning: There is great danger when you forget God, forget his mighty works, and forget the church--the worshipping community of faith.
• Questions:
• Do followers of God face tough times? Face troubling times of anguish, agony and anxiety and a sense of defeat and discouragement, despair and drowning, dryness and darkness, dejection and depression? Why (Ps 22:1)?
• How do you counter the defeating sense of being abandoned by God in Psalm 42 and 43? How does the Psalmist balance his feelings of abandonment with his trust in God?
• How do the psalmist's expressions of sorrow reflect your own experiences in times of hardship (Ps 13:1-2, 38:2; 51:3-4; 22:1-2)?
• When it seems like God is silent (Ps 28:1; 83:1; Job 30:20), what truths help you put one foot in front of the other?
• What has God given you to remember His work and presence in your life?
• The psalmist talked about God's song in the night (Ps 42:8). Have songs encouraged you and why?
• What is the role of the community of believers in helping someone who is discouraged (Ps 42:4)? Why is the church and community worship such an important part of the life of Christians?
• Are you more accustomed to listening to yourself, or talking to yourself? What can you learn about self-counseling from Psalm 42? Consider the following:   
  
• Are my circumstances due to any known sin on my part (Psalm 32, 51)?
• Does God want me to do anything to change my circumstances or do I need to learn to wait until he acts? [Think about Elijah by the brook Cherith or Joseph in prison in Egypt.]  
• If I can't change my circumstance, how does God want me to change my stance or perspective? [Think about Paul's reference to being an ambassador in chains instead of a mere prisoner.]
• How does knowing God's sovereign control of the situation bring a sense of comfort?

• Lessons to Learn:
1. Even followers of God/Christians face tough times and are not exempt from them.
2. Tough times should lead the people of God/Christians to thirst for God.
3. Thirst is quenched by faith (Ps 42:5, 11; 43:5). Faith is being sure of what we hope for (Heb 11:1) in his loneliness, fear, anxiety, depression, feeling of abandonment, when it seems that God is not listening, has forgotten him, or hidden his face from him, or not going to deliver him, etc. His present tense longing is met by God's past tense faithfulness and God's future tense promises.
4. God is still the answer.

Psalm 42:1. The poignancy of this famous line reflects the distinctive tone of this supplication: instead of emphasizing the speaker's suffering he expresses above all his passionate longing for God. He addresses his words to God but feels distant from God, removed from the Temple and plagued by enemies (Ps 42:3-4). "I" is the intensive form of the 1st-person pronoun, nafshi, abundantly used in this psalm, and translated as "my whole being" (Alter). "pants" (NIV), "yearns" (Alter), "craves" (Motyer) may refer to the sound a thirsty deer makes as it drinks, or to the animal's bending its neck toward water.

Psalm 42:5. This "self-talk" is the major refrain of Psalm 42-43. It's an important dialogue between the 2 aspects of the believer. We are called to live in eternity, with a mind stayed on God, but also in time, where mind and body are under pressures that cannot and should not leave us impassive. The refrain teaches us to take seriously both aspects of our existence. There is no hint that his distress was avoidable, or unendurable. Either way it did not shake his faith.

   

A sense of abandonment by God is expressed to some degree or another in all lament psalms: From "Why do you delay when I need you?" as in this psalm to the ultimate abandonment expressed in Psalm 22, or especially Psalm 88. The psalmist in trouble consistently senses that God is far away and slow to act. Help never comes quickly enough for the one in pain. But as he pours out his soul in anguish (Ps 42:4) and his soul is downcast (Ps 42:5), he remembers God (Ps 42:6).

Remembrance and forgetting (both divine and human). Memory is important in the O.T., appearing > 350 times {the verbal root zkr [zāḵar] and all its related nouns} (Ps 42:4, 6)}. When other idiomatic expressions that do not use zkr are included ("bring to mind," "keep in your heart"), concern with memory is even more pervasive.

"Remember" in the OT is akin to our "recall." But for Israel it is never as simple as bringing to mind a set of feelings or facts. Almost without exception, a call to remember is at the same time a call to action. It's a call to remember God--Yahweh in order to remain faithful to him:

• Remember the commandments and keep them.
• Remember God's wonderful acts and praise him for them [among the worshipping congregation in the temple].
• Remember God's deliverance in spite of our lack of righteousness and be humbly dependent on him.

Memory is never passive but requires an active response to what is remembered. To remember God is to ground one's life in and on him and so to draw all of one's life decisions and actions out of that foundation.

Why is forgetfulness so tragic and so often condemned in the O.T.? Because it is not a simple passive loss of memory but a willful resistance or rejection of memory and a consequent failure to act appropriately. To forget God is to resist making the connection between who God is and how one is to act in response. It's to act as if God has no claim on me that embodies this forgetfulness. To forget God is not simply to lose memory of God's name, deeds, and commandments, nor even to fail to call him to mind. Forgetting God is a willful act of "unlearning," whereby rebellious humans reject what they have known and--through lack of commitment, disobedience, and refusal to transmit the truth--seek to create a world in which God does not act or even exist. So such people are able to cry, "Where is your God?" (Ps 42:3, 10)

Life together: The importance of communal worship as a response to individual suffering. The psalms are replete with communal laments, communal praise, and communal thanksgiving. Worship is more than a few individuals coming together. They came together to lament or celebrate their lives together, while also focusing on the experiences of the individual: laments, praise, thanksgiving, instruction. The individual is not swallowed up in society, but neither is society disbanded in favor of the individual, which places the individual in the midst of the worshiping congregation (Ps 31:1-22, 23-24). This reflects Israel's understanding of the important interweaving of individual and community in worship (Ps 30, 32, 34, 52, 64, 66).

• The individual delivered by God from trouble brings sacrifices of thanksgiving to the temple and stands among the congregation proclaiming his faithfulness.
• The one who still suffers does not sing laments in isolation but proclaims his or her need in the congregation and seeks hope there.

Strength in numbers. The individual can encourage, challenge or admonish the community toward faithfulness, endurance or repentance. The community can provide a collective memory of the mighty acts of God that exceeds the memory or experience of one and provides the continued context for enduring faith, hope and love.

I'd Rather Have Jesus Song by Jim Reeves.

I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold

I'd rather be His than have riches untold

I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land

I'd rather be led by His nail-pierced hand

Than to be the king of a vast domain

And be held in sin's dread sway

I'd rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today

I'd rather have Jesus than worldly applause

I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause

I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame

Yes, I'd rather be true to His holy name

Than to be the king of a vast domain

And be held in sin's dread sway

I'd rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today

'I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing 'ourselves' to talk to us! Do you realise what this means? I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical? Far from it. This is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. 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 essence of this matter is to understand that this self of ours, this other man within us, has got to be handled. Do not listen to him; turn on him, speak to him, exhort him, encourage him; remind him of what you know, instead of listening placidly to him and allowing him to drag you down and depress you. We must stand up as this man did and say 'Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.' - D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

It's an honest, human experience, especially when in difficult times, to ask why? Why am I experiencing this hurt, this sadness, sorrow and suffering? Why does God seem unconcerned? Why can't I shake this sense of loneliness? Why do I feel unfulfilled? Why, if I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing, does God still feel distant? Psalm 42 expresses such queries. The unfettered emotions present in this psalm invite us into an experience of theology with hands and feet. It reflects the process of speaking truth to your heart even as you are enticed by the lies of despair. Also, the flow of the joys of experiencing a confident trust in the Lord one day, or one moment, only to feel the ebb, with joy sliding away, as you receive another bit of bad news or some previously unconsidered challenge makes its way to the forefront of your mind. But this is the dance of discipleship as we, partnered with the Spirit, learn the steps of the Christ-life and live them out in our own day-to-day lives. Psalm 42-43 is the invitation of the Lord to bring your doubts, hopes, and disappointments to him, and allow the words of this Psalm to give voice to the cries of your heart. Learn through these words what it means to practice the application of truth as you trust the Lord each moment of each day.

References:

1. Tremper Longman III & David E Garland. Psalms. The Expositor's Bible Commentary. 2008. Psalm 42-43: Anguish of Alienation from God. Hoping in the Lord's Salvation.
2. Talk to Yourself, Not Listen to Yourself (Tim Keller).
1. Pour out your soul to God (Ps 42:4). Get in touch with God, with his feelings.
2. Self-dialogue (Ps 42:5). He's not talking to God nor to readers but to himself. We must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us.
3. Reorder your hopes (Ps 42:5; 103:2).
3. John Stott. Favorite Psalms. 1988. Psalm 42-43: The Causes and Cure of Spiritual Depression.
1. The causes of spiritual depression.
2. The cure for spiritual depression.
4. Tim Keller. The Songs of Jesus. 2015.
5. Gerald Wilson. Psalms Vol 1. The NIV Application Commentary. 2002.
1. Longing to Meet God (Ps 42:1-5). Thirsty from drought.
2. Overwhelmed and Forgotten (Ps 42:6-11). Drowning in the depths like Jonah.
3. Plea for Vindication and Joyous Return (Ps 43:1-5).
6. John Goldingay. Psalms for Everyone, Part 1. 2013. Psalm 42: Where Is Your God? Psalm 43: When Life Continues to Be Darkness. 
7. Derek Kidner. Psalms 1-72, 1973. Psalms 73-150, 1975. Psalm 42-43: Far From Home.
1. The drought (Ps 42:1-5).
2. The depths (Ps 42:6-11).
3. The release (Ps 43:1-5).
8. Alec Motyer. Psalms by the Day. A New Devotional Translation. 2016. Psalm 42-43: Downcast Soul: Up-beat God.
   
1. Looking back: God in the past (Ps 42:1-5).
2. Looking around: God in the present (Ps 42:6-11).
3. Looking ahead: God in the future (Ps 43:1-5).
9. Robert Altar. The Hebrew Bible. A Translation with Commentary. 2019.
10. Feeling Down, Looking Up. Skip Heitzig.

"Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure" by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, addresses spiritual depression--its causes and potential remedies.

Causes of Spiritual Depression:

1. A Lack of Assurance regarding one's salvation.
2. Misunderstanding or misinterpreting biblical truths.
3. Focusing on Feelings Rather Than Truth can lead to spiritual instability.
4. Physical Factors, illness, exhaustion can affect one emotionally, spiritually.
5. Wrong Thinking Patterns: Negative thought patterns and distorted thinking.

Cure for Spiritual Depression:

1. A deep and accurate understanding of God's Word.
2. Focus on Truth instead of being swayed by emotions.
3. Seek and embrace the assurance of salvation found in Christ.
4. Engage in Spiritual Disciplines--prayer, worship, and fellowship.
5. Renew the Mind: Transform negative thought patterns by renewing the mind with biblical truths is crucial.
6. Rely on the Holy Spirit in guiding, comforting, and empowering believers.

"Spiritual Depression" by Martyn Lloyd-Jones explores of its causes and offers a biblically grounded approach for healing and joy. The key is to understand God's Word, rely on the Holy Spirit, and shift from feelings to the unchanging truths of Scripture.

Causes of spiritual depression:

1. Unfulfilled expectations.
2. Taunts of unbelievers.
3. Overwhelming struggles of life.
4. Wrong use of the past.
5. Preoccupation with self.

Cure for spiritual depression:

1. Replace your thoughts with his truth.
2. Replace yourself with your God.
3. Replace your past with your future.