Psalms 43:1-5: in context

This psalm is the prayer of a person far from the place of worship, feeling rejected and oppressed, asking God to vindicate him and plead his cause. Send out your light and your truth, he prays; let them lead me to your holy hill, to your dwelling, and then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and praise you with the harp. And it ends with the refrain that appears three times across these psalms: 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 striking thing about this psalm is the man talking to himself. Instead of only pouring out his despair, at the end he turns and addresses his own downcast soul: why are you cast down? Hope in God. He does not passively wait for his feelings to lift; he preaches to himself, questioning his own despair and commanding his soul to hope. There is real wisdom in that. Our feelings are not simply the truth about our situation, and part of faith is the discipline of speaking truth back to a discouraged heart rather than just listening to it. The psalmist argues with his own gloom, reminds his soul who God is, and points it forward to the praise that will come again. And notice where he directs his longing: to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy. His hope is not chiefly for circumstances to change but to come back into the presence of God, who is himself the exceeding joy the soul was made for. When the soul is cast down, the remedy this psalm models is to stop merely listening to your despair and start preaching to it: hope in God, for I shall again praise him.

When my soul is cast down, do I only listen to the despair, or can I do what the psalmist did, turn and preach to my own heart, hope in God, for I shall again praise him?