As preached by Zach Thompson. When you are in a season of pain and God feels distant...
1) Be honest with God.
2) Preach God's truth to yourself.
3) Place your trust in God.
Good morning Christ Fellowship!
If you haven’t already turned there, we will be in Psalms 42-43 this morning. We’ll read that together in just a moment.
Each week, it’s our normal practice to go chapter by chapter through books of the Bible. Recently, Timothy has been guiding us through the book of Proverbs, but this week, we are continuing our long journey through the Psalms.
If you look up at the top of Psalm 42, you can see the superscription. “To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. The Sons of Korah were known as the Korahites. They were doorkeepers and worship leaders in the temple. These psalms are psalms of lament that are meant to be sung with other followers of God.
You might wonder why we are doing two psalms today. It’s generally agreed that Psalms 42 and 43 were originally a single psalm, but they were broken apart for liturgical reasons. They share a common refrain that is repeated through both of them, and the themes are intertwined together, so we are treating them together today.
Now, if you are able, please stand in honor of the reading of God’s word as we begin.
42 TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A MASKIL OF THE SONS OF KORAH.
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the House of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 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 6 and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and 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 do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 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.
43:1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 Send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling!
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.
5 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.
Let’s pray.
Our modern age is faced with something that experts call a behavioral epidemic. Since the 1950s, we have been steadily rising in our society’s rates of depression and loneliness.
It’s a great irony of our time that as our life spans get longer and as there are more humans on this planet than ever before, we are apparently more lonely than ever.
Depending on the study that you are looking at, you may see numbers that between 50-76% of society is characterized by moderate to severe loneliness.
Maybe this resonates with you. But if you are a follower of Jesus, then I would make the case that you aren’t experiencing mere loneliness.
You are experiencing spiritual turmoil. It’s different.
Our text today isn’t about mere loneliness or depression. Our text today is a commentary on spiritual turmoil.
It’s a similar emotional experience, but there is a major difference. Loneliness is what happens when our social relationships aren’t what we expect them to be. Spiritual turmoil is what happens when our relationship with God isn’t what we expected. It might flow into our social relationships, but it’s rooted in our relationship with God.
Really, I think that everyone is in the same boat here. For all humans, our horizontal relationships with other people are always deeply affected by our vertical relationship with God.
For all of us, when our relationship with God feels distant, our relationship with other people will be strained.
Now, we don’t know the exact circumstance of the psalmist, but we don’t need to. He is physically separated from the Temple where God manifested his presence most clearly at that time. He was separated from the people of God. He was in the midst of enemies who taunted and jeered with questions like, “Where is your God now?”
Surrounded by enemies. Away from his home. Away from the presence of God. Away from the people of God.
He feels alone. He feels helpless. And he feels like God has rejected him.
This is an experience that most of us are familiar with.
Maybe you feel that way right now.
Look up in 42:1. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
In one way, this is something to strive for. He thirsts for God. Often our problem is that we feel depressed and alone, but we don’t thirst for God. We thirst for other things because we think they will satisfy. But the psalmist knows better.
That isn’t the psalmist’s problem. Maybe you’ve heard the song, “As the deer.”
As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after thee
You alone are my heart's desire and I long to worship you.
It’s based on this psalm. I remember singing that song as a proclamation of how much I loved God. I love God like a really thirsty deer.
You can almost envy the psalmist. He loves God so much! I wish I loved God that way.
It’s good to desire God like that but pay attention here. That’s not the sense of this verse. He isn’t proclaiming his love for God.
He is lamenting because he desires God but it feels like God is distant. He feels like God is far away from his prayer and from his need.
“Think about that phrase. As a deer pants for flowing streams,”
The word for pant here is only used in one other place in the Old Testament. That’s in Joel 1. That verse sheds a bit more light on what this word means. It says that the beasts of the field pant because all of the brooks of water are dried up. It’s a frustrated thirst. It’s an ongoing thirst.
This isn’t a psalm about proclaiming love for God. It’s a psalm about feeling desperation for the presence of God. It’s like a man in the desert who hasn’t had water for days but he keeps walking. He looks up the next sand dune, and he thinks, if I can just reach the top, then I will be able to see someplace where I can get water. Then when he finally summits the hill, he looks around and he sees nothing but sand. This is the kind of desperation that the psalmist feels
God, I desire your presence! Why do you feel so distant? Why do I feel alone?
It’s like down in 42:7 when he says that Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
It’s the feeling that you just can’t get past this. I just can’t get a break. I can hardly breathe. Just before I catch my breath, another wave hits me. God, why is this happening?
God, I feel like I’m failing at every task in front of me. How could someone so beloved to me die now? My dear friend has turned against me and won’t talk to me anymore because I decided to listen to you instead of him.
And in all of this, God, you feel distant.
Maybe you have said things like this. Or maybe you’ve experienced it, but you haven’t said anything.
When we come into spiritual turmoil, how should we respond? What does it mean to live faithfully when your soul feels like it is a doormat and your prayers seem to ring into nothingness?
Psalms 42 and 43 give us some answers to this question.
My hope is that as we dwell on this text you will be equipped to walk through those seasons of pain when God feels distant.
What are some of the responses that we see here?
First,
When you are in a season of pain and God feels distant,
Be honest with God
Be honest with God.
The Psalmist is honest with God. Look up in verses 1 to 3. The Psalmist tells God that he feels like he is not present with him.
Look down in verses 6 to 8. When he is considering his present moment, he tells God that it feels like he’s drowning.
Who does he say the waves belong to? Who owns the breakers? Who owns the waterfall?
Look at verse seven. It is your waterfalls! Your breakers! Your waves!
Obviously, this is a metaphor, he isn’t literally in the water, but there are circumstances that are crashing against him. And who do the circumstances belong to?
They belong to God. The Psalmist’s knows that the very things that are causing him pain belong to God.
Look at verse nine. Psalm 42:9, “I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
Psalm 43:2 --“Why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
He feels like God has forgotten and rejected him. He feels defeated at the hands of an unjust enemy. He mourning.
Be honest with God. Maybe this sounds simple. Maybe it sounds like a given, but I just don’t think that we can assume this. When you enter depression, or spiritual turmoil, or pain, what do you do?
Who do you actually turn to? Be honest. God? So often, we don’t even go to God!
We talk to our friends. We try to numb the pain with distractions. Maybe we go to all kinds of sin so that we can forget. Or we busy our hands for every waking moment of the day without any rest so that we will never stop to think about how miserable we are.
Or maybe we just don’t tell anybody and we act like nothing is wrong. We try to convince ourselves that nothing is happening and everything is fine.
We so often just try to avoid even talking to God, much less being honest with him.
But even if we do pray to God, so often we aren’t honest with him. We say the things that we know we were supposed to say.
God, you are good. God, we thank you. These things are not bad! By all means, pray these things to God!
But if you are lying to God, and hiding your pain from him, he knows. And his heart breaks for you.
Oh, what needless pain we bear because we do not take everything to him in prayer.
It reminds me of my friend Robert. A long time before I met Robert, he would take big groups of teenagers backpacking with him. On one of those trips, he took about 30 middle schoolers and high schoolers with him on a multiple-day backpacking trip. On the second day of the trip, one of the young ladies started to slow down a bit, and eventually, she just passed out from over-exertion. They were a day-and-a-half hike into the wilderness, and she was out cold. They helped her wake up, and my friend Robert was in charge. He wanted to make sure that it didn’t happen again, so he carried her pack for her.
As he picked up her bag, he realized that it was way heavier than usual. So he sat it back down, and he opened it. It was filled with rocks. As this young lady walked through the wilderness, she picked every rock that she thought was beautiful, and she put it in her bag. Before you know it, she had a backpack full of rocks and a case of exhaustion.
When we aren’t honest with God, we are just like that girl. Silently and needlessly carrying a backpack full of rocks. At the breaking point of exhaustion, but unwilling to say anything.
Have you ever felt that way and you didn’t say anything about it to God? Just say it out loud. God, I feel like you are far from me, when will I feel like you are near? Draw me nearer to you! Help me to feel your presence!
Recognize your weakness and sadness. Stop faking spirituality. God resists the proud but he gives grace to the humble!
Just stop, and tell God where you are.
Just talk to him about what’s going on in your heart. It’s what the psalmist is doing.
It’s like when my dad was teaching me how to drive. When he was in the car with me, one of the exercises he would have me do was to just say out loud every street sign that we passed. “There’s a stop sign up ahead. Speed limit is 35. No left turn.” It seems a bit ridiculous. I could read really well. It wasn’t about competence. It was about paying attention and responding to what was there.
Just say it to God. Be honest. I’m sad. I’m depressed. I’m paralyzed by my anxiety. I’m addicted to this life-sucking habit. I’m a hypocrite. God, I feel like a failure. I’m tired. God, am I wasting my life? Wretched man that I am! O God! What is wrong with me?
Be honest with God.
But honest recognition of our current state isn’t sufficient. We can’t stop there.
You have to
Preach God’s truth to yourself.
When you are in a season of pain and God feels distant, preach God’s truth to yourself.
We live in an age that is deeply concerned with your truth. You need to live your truth. Be who you are. You need to practice good self-talk. Keep up a positive self-image.
No. Our age wants to look in the mirror and worship the thing that we see, but we are image bearers of another one who is far more worthy of worship and trust.
You don’t need your truth. You need God’s truth.
Because so often, your truth is simply a lie.
Look in 42:5. Where did the psalmist’s own heart lead him? It leads him to downtroddenness and turmoil. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”
That’s part of the refrain that he repeats three times. He says the same thing in 42:11 and 43:5.
His soul is cast down and in turmoil. Why? Because he is listening to the voices of his enemies and he thinks, “Maybe they’re right.” Where is God? Why does that one who hates God, why does he have victory while I am grinding in the dust?
In our turmoil, it is so easy to believe lies. No one understands me. No one really values me. No one loves me. Everyone hates me. Everyone thinks that I am dispensable.
These are the kinds of whispers that your inner voice will whisper. But don’t listen! You don’t need your truth. You need God’s truth. When you realize that you are believing these lies, it should be like walking into a nursery where a poopy diaper was changed but they forgot to take it to the trash. Have you ever done that? I know I have. When you walk into that room, you know immediately that something is wrong. You immediately start to look around for the source of the stench. You find it, and you throw it away. Find the lie and throw it away.
How do you do this?
A simple answer here is this: by reminding yourself of what is actually true. Preach God’s truth to yourself.
That’s what the psalmist does.
He does this in two ways. He does this by dwelling on the past, and he does it by dwelling on the future.
Look at how he dwells on the past. Look in 42:4. “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of god with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.”
He looks back to a time when he worshipped with God’s people. And the sweetness of it pulls it out of his navel-gazing.
And how can we do this? As much as you are able, savor the sweetness of worshiping the one true God with the gathered people of God. Go to church and serve and listen and be shaped by it. Savor the presence of God among his people. Because there may come a day when it feels like those voices may never sing again. A day when you don’t feel like anything has ever been good because everything is pain and despair. On that day, remember the sweet times of worship with the body of Christ.
Soon after having our first child people started saying it. Savor every moment. The time passes faster than you will ever know. And when it’s gone, it’s gone forever. Last week, a sweet man visited our church. After the service, he commented on how loud and beautifully my daughters sang beside him. And as he said that, I thought about how easy it is to take it for granted. The sweet things. The good things. The day will come when I won’t be able to hear the sweet little voices anymore. They will be grown, and their childish voices will be gone.
A day may come when you can’t hear the worship of God’s gathered people and savor God’s presence there. A day may come when you need to remember.
Prepare for the dark day of the soul by armoring up as you worship with the body of Christ.
But he didn’t just dwell on the past. He also dwelt on the future.
Look at the refrain in 42:5, “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.”
Do you hear that? He commands his own soul. Hope in God! Lift up your eyes and look beyond this momentary affliction, and look to the promise of God. Why should he hope in God? “for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
If you are in Christ, then remember this and rest in it. The grief and pain and darkness and numbness of this world are not forever.
This pain is not your name forever. You have a new name because you have been made a new creation in Christ. The old has passed away, and behold, the new has come.
Christ died on the cross for you, and he was raised up to eternal life, and if you are trusting in him, then you have life. If you are in Christ, then your sin is no more. And when God sees you, he sees one whom he loves, because he sees his very own Son.
And you have this promise that when he comes back to take his own, you will be with him. Even if you feel depressed and alone for the rest of your short life, then you can cling to this.
On that day, you will dwell with God, and he will dwell with you. He will never feel distant again. He will be the very warmth on your skin as you bask in his glory.
Maybe you hear me say this, but still, you feel skeptical.
With my head, I believe this is true, but I feel numb. I’ve tried this, and it didn’t work. I’m in the same boat as before.
That’s fair. And I would say two things to you.
First, say it again. When your heart needs to hear truth, it almost never works for you to just say it once. You need it over and over and over. That’s what the psalmist does. He repeats this three times over the course of our text today, and it doesn’t change at all. He literally says the same words over and over.
“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.”
When your heart needs to hear truth, repeat it again and again.
The second thing that I would say for you who say that you know the truth but don’t feel it.
Don’t do it alone. Sanctification is a team sport.
In our text today, it’s no coincidence that both of the positive experiences of God’s presence are in the context of worshiping with God’s people!
And that is the entire point of this psalm! You are not alone. This psalm isn’t a journal entry. It’s meant to be sung together by God’s people. Look up in the superscription for chapter 42. “To the choirmaster.” What do choirmasters do? They master choirs! They lead groups of people. This song of tears and lament and desperation before God is meant to be sung together.
If you are crying tears of desperation before God, don’t do it alone.
This brings us to our final point.
When you are in a season of pain and God feels distant,
Be honest with God
Preach God’s truth to yourself.
And finally,
Place your Trust in God
If you are honest with God and you preach God’s truth to yourself, none of it will matter if you don’t trust him.
What does it mean to place your trust in God?
For our purposes today, I think that it involves two things. Pleading with him and hoping in him.
Look in 43:1, “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge;”
Then look down in 43:3, “Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!
He pleads with God. to vindicate him and deliver him. To lead him into his presence again.
What greater proclamation of trust can there be than simply to ask?
Be honest with God. Preach God’s truth to yourself. And ask God for deliverance.
Then what’s left? Wait for him with hope. It’s the final expression of trust.
Look at 43:4. “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”
He looks ahead to a day when God will fulfill his promise, and he waits for it with positive expectation.
Whether your circumstances are good, or whether your circumstances are bad, it will not change the fact that God has promised eternal life and joy for all of those who will just turn from their sin and trust in Jesus.
Jesus was the man of Sorrow. The one whose soul was troubled has walked headfirst into horrible suffering. He prayed that God would remove the cup from him if there was any other possible way, and God said no, there is no other way, and Jesus walked forward in sober faithfulness.
Jesus walked forward to pain and sorrow to the moment just before he breathed his last on the cross when he said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus knew forsakenness. He knew what it was to pant for his Father as a deer pants for flowing streams. His enemies mocked him, and he was alone.
And praise be to God that Jesus was victorious. Faithful to the end and now with resurrected life without end.
He walked with eyes wide open into sorrow so that we can walk through sorrow as we look to a place where there will be no more sorrow.
Jesus secured this promise for us, and in him, we can command our own souls with the psalmist, “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.”
Let’s pray.
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