Please read
Psalms 42 & 43
Today we
look at verses 6 to 11 of Psalm 42 and we meet a depressed and discouraged
psalmist. He is away from God’s house in Jerusalem in “the land of Jordan and
of Hermon (v.6)”. Away from God’s house he feels abandoned by God.
He is communicating with God but his depression has dragged him down to the ‘deep(v.
7)’. His words “all your breakers and
your waves have gone over me(v.7)” sound as if the psalmist
is blaming God, but he is not, because in verse 8 he tells us that he still
trusts in the grace of the God of his life. Yet once again his depressed mind,
the vacillating psalmist pleads “Why have you forgotten me?(v.9)” He
also remembers his enemies’ taunts, but again in verse 11, he realizes the balm
for his depression is the Hope that God provides.
Nobel
winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in Soviet prisons and three
years in labor camps. Many times he thought he would die in the brutal atmosphere
where he had to perform hours and hours of hard physical labor. One day in the ‘deep’ Solzhenitsyn came up with a
plan to die in the hands of prison guards. Leaning on his shovel, he stopped
working and expected the prison guards to beat him to death. A fellow Christian
prisoner, who saw what Solzhenitsyn was doing, used his own shovel and drew a
cross that only Solzhenitsyn could see. Solzhenitsyn later testified that small
cross in the dirt gave him hope in Christ and helped him survive the brutal
prison conditions.
Dear brother
and sister in Christ, have you ever felt alone and depressed? Worse, have you
felt alone and depressed in a group, crowd or even in your church? Such
situations might really take you to the ‘deep’, but always remember God’s
promise “I will never leave you nor
forsake you”( Hebrews 13:5), and the psalmist’s words “Hope in God” for
one day you will be with Him because of Jesus.
Lord, I need you. Whenever I am in
the deep, fill me with the hope that comes only from You, Your Son, and Your
Word. I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The Kurt Carr Singers with the late great Natalie Cole- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLm9va_4JJc
🙂
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