Psalms 42:1-11: a reflection

1As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God. 2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” 4These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day. 5Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence. 6My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. 7Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me. 8The LORD will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life. 9I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” 11Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.

Psalm 42 gives voice to a soul thirsting for God in a dry and downcast season. As the deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God; my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. The psalmist is in anguish, his tears his food day and night, taunted with the question, Where is your God? He remembers better days of joyful worship, and the memory only sharpens the ache. Yet in the depths, he does something remarkable: he speaks to his own 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.

Notice two things the psalmist does. He is honest about his thirst and his despair, not hiding the ache of a soul longing for God in a season when God feels distant. And he preaches to himself, turning to address his own downcast soul, not passively sinking into despair but actively calling himself back to hope: Why are you cast down? Hope in God. He does not merely listen to his despairing heart; he speaks truth to it.

Both are worth learning. There are seasons when our souls thirst for God and he seems distant, when we are downcast and the ache is real. The psalm permits that honesty; it does not scold the thirst. But it also models what to do with a downcast soul: not simply to listen to it, but to preach to it, to remind it of God and call it back to hope. When your soul is cast down and thirsting, be honest about it as the psalmist was, and then do as he did: speak to your own soul. Why are you cast down? Hope in God. You shall again praise him, the saving help of your countenance and your God.

Lord, the psalmist's soul thirsted for you like a deer panting for water, cast down and in turmoil, taunted with where is your God; and yet he preached to his own soul: why are you cast down? Hope in God. When my soul thirsts for you in a dry and downcast season, when you feel distant and the ache is real, give me the psalmist's honesty to name it before you. And teach me to do what he did: not merely to listen to my despairing heart, but to speak truth to it, to remind it of you and call it back to hope. Help me say to my own soul, hope in God, for I shall again praise him. Be the saving help of my countenance and my God.