Psalm 42 – Soul Revival. By Sara Cain.
Maranatha Music was the pioneer group for modern scripture-based worship music, debuting just as I was becoming an adult. My favorite song was As the Deer based on Psalm 42. For a long time, I thought of this psalm simply as a beautiful call to worship.
As I grew in my relationship with the Lord and intentionally studied His Word, I discovered a much larger story to this psalm as well as a new perspective about its purpose.
David had everything desired by the flesh; wealth, power, health, strength, good looks, and was enormously gifted. As King, he could have anything he wanted.
David was also a spiritual giant. God called him, “A man after my own heart” because David relentlessly pursued Him, aligning his own heart with God’s heart.
Because of his favored relationship with God, blessed in every way, I was shocked to learn that sometimes David suffered from depression, at times becoming so discouraged that he wanted to die, and he does not hold back expressing this in many of the Psalms.
I treasure this because it shows me that it is okay to experience these feelings. No need to beat myself up or be disappointed in myself for not being good enough, or thinking, “I’m a Christian. I shouldn’t feel this way.”
Even saved, we are human, and like David, at times we will experience depression or other negative debilitating feelings.
Psalm 42 helps us navigate through our darkest thoughts and feelings to bring us back to emotional balance based on our confidence in God’s love and goodness.
Psalm 42 (NIV)
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
We were created to live in fellowship with God, to desire God’s presence above all else.
Our first step to find our way back from the darkness is to intentionally seek God’s presence from the depths of our heart and soul.
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
David’s depression convinced him that he was isolated from God. Our troubles can make us feel isolated, too. While we feel separated from God, it’s not reality.
God is still with us, but we’re so immersed in our painful thoughts and feelings that we lose our awareness of His presence.
We must be honest about our feelings, with ourselves and with God. He invites us to bare our soul to Him, expressing our rawest emotions, holding nothing back.
When our soul is crushed, our heart cries out,
“Where are you, God?
Don’t you see my tears?
Don’t you hear my cries?
David laments,
“… my tears have been my food day and night …”
What a powerful picture of feeling completely overwhelmed. I’ve been there. I’m sure you have, too.
But David later writes in Psalm 56: 8
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. (NLT)
The truth is God sees all our tears and feels our sorrows. He’s always working behind the scenes to bring good outcomes from bad situations for those who love Him. That’s a promise we can stand on. (Romans 8:28)
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Abruptly in the middle of his tears, David turns his mind to recall good times with God.
He recalls God’s protection and fellowship.
He meditates on the joy in praising God with others who worshiped God with him.
He intentionally calls to mind being in God’s presence with joy and praise and celebration.
He declares God to be The Mighty One.
We see David make a conscious choice here. It’s a discipline he has mastered.
Instead of giving up, he looks up.
He chooses to believe Who he knows God to be and His faithfulness and love for him, over giving in to dark thoughts and believing satan’s lies.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
In Joshua 4, the Lord tells the people to build a memorial to mark the place where God miraculously delivered them across the Jordan River so that whenever they saw the memorial, they would remember what God had done.
The word God used here for “memorial” is the same word He used for “sabbath” in the Ten Commandments. It means to remember with focus.
Our memories of what God has done for us in our past are to be more than just a pleasant remembering of something good,
but a call to meditate on the memory,
soak in the awesome truth of God’s miraculous works
and apply that truth to our present circumstance.
This is how we move from emotional fatigue and despair to emotional balance and reaffirm our hope in God’s faithfulness to love and care for us in our present circumstances.
I identify most with David’s lamenting poured out in the Psalms when grieving the loss of loved ones. One by one, my parents and four of my five siblings left me. The first to go was my mother, who is the only one who “naturally passed of old age”.
But by far the worst blow was the death of my beloved grandson under terrible circumstances. His death also left us with challenging situations to overcome.
Like the psalmist, my tears were my food day and night. Besides feeling my grandson’s loss personally, the pain of watching my son grieve the loss of his son felt unbearable.
Years earlier, I would have been inconsolable, but thankfully, as I mature in my relationship with God and trust in His character and promises grows, I’m learning to say this in devastating times:
“You silly girl, why do you despair when you KNOW from experience that God has the answer you need, that He will always make a way, and most importantly, He will never leave or forsake you. Has he ever failed you? No! Never! Remember when God . . . “
And here I insert a litany of the experiences when God brought me through difficult times, some by miraculous interventions and some in more usual ways in everyday challenges.
Cultivate the habit of remembrance so that you can make a deliberate choice to turn from depression, self-pity, or whatever negativity plagues you, back to thoughts of God’s love and faithfulness to you and His ability to do the impossible.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
“Deep calls to deep” is the deepest part of our crushed soul calling to Holy Spirit, the deepest part of our connection with God.
As the trials of life overwhelm us like waves crashing over us and we flounder in waterfalls threatening to drown us, our deep need calls out to the depth of God’s love, abilities, sovereignty, and simply his Being, that is more powerful than the potential destruction of our greatest crisis.
Our human emptiness and deep need can only be satisfied by the deep, immeasurable fullness of God.
8 By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
David concludes his emotional roller coaster ride in verse 11 by declaring to himself (and to God) that he will
Put his hope in God,
That he will
Yet praise Him,
Because
God is his Savior and his God.
We defeat the work of satan and his lies that influence our thoughts and feelings by praising God out loud, worshiping God with thanksgiving and adoration, surrendering to His sovereignty over our lives even in, especially in, our darkest battles.
“. . . You alone are my strength, my shield,
to You alone may my spirit yield. . .”
Every crashing wave of trouble is still under God’s control, and the deepest plea of our troubled soul finds comfort and victory in the inexhaustible depths of God’s love.
If you’re fighting a hard battle today, I recommend listening to Hard Fought Hallelujah. It almost feels like David wrote this song.
If you’re in a calmer place right now, or after you’ve listened to Hard Fought Hallelujah, you can enjoy the original Maranatha version of Psalm 42 call to worship, As the Deer Pants.
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