C.J. Mahaney
Psalm 42
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while they say to me continually,
“Where is your God?”
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.
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.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
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.
Prayer.
Paul Tripp’s book on Biblical counseling: Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands. Recently I came across the following insight in Paul’s writing. Listen carefully as Paul describes the most influential voice in your life, the one voice out of every other that always has your attention. See if you don’t recognize it.
“I find myself saying it all the time. When people hear it, they laught…. but actually I’m being quite serious when I say it. Here it is: No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do. You’re in an unending conversation with yourself. You’re talking to yourelf all the time, interpreting, organizing, and analyzing what’s going on inside you and around you…. Why you feel so tired, or woke up with a sense of dread and are not sure why….. Maybe your mind has travelled back to your distant past… The point is, you are constantly involved in an internal conversaiotn that greatly influences the things you decide, say, and do. What do you regularly tell yourself about yourself, God, and your circumstances? Do your words encourage… or stimulate doubt and fear? That God is near or must be distant? Do you encourage yourself to run to God… or give yourself permission to back away from Him when you feel a distance? When others talk to you is your internal conversation so loud that you can’t hear what they’re saying? Here’s the question: How faith-driven and Christ-centered is the conversation that you have, with you, every day?
This evening we’re going to consider and examine this unending conversation taking place within you every day. Rarely do we evaluate or consider the influence of this conversation upon our lives. Most of us don’t think of it as serious or influential, but we are mistaken. This internal conversation has the most influence on your soul every day. You are more influenced by it than your friends, pastors, teachers, parents… sometimes even more than God’s Word. It is the difference maker.
Informing this conversation with God’s Holy scripture can and will make all the difference in your soul and life.
In this Psalm we have an opportunity to evaluate the psalmist as he evaluates the conversation in his soul. He humbly shares it with us this evening so that we may evaluate our own conversation and its influence in our lives.
1.
The Troubled Soul
Even a casual reading of this psalm reveals that all is not well. This man’s soul is troubled, and the conversation within his soul is troubling. His soul is “cast down”, “in turmoil.”
We’re probably all familiar with this experience. But if you are not prepared for it, you are vulnerable to the dangers of it.
“The Psalms have always been favorites of God’s people, because they express honest human experience and emotion in the context of faith. In the Psalms, you meet God where you are.” – David Powlison
The author’s soul seems to have been troubled by three different experiences.
The (apparent) absence of God.
The psalm does not begin with a reference to his troubled soul. First we encounter a thirsty soul (as the deer, etc.). Initially he portrays himself as thirsty for God. Passionate for God and passionately pursuing God.
He is thirsty for God, yet his soul is downcast and in turmoil. He’s troubled in his soul before God.
How can those be present simultaneously? Why is he downcast? Why is his soul in turmoil?
Even though he longs for God, he feels distant from God. Though he’s thirsty for God, he feels alienated from God. He longs for God, yet he feels forgotten by God. He is passionate for God, yet he feels abandoned by God. Meet a man this evening who desires God’s presence but feels God’s absence. Meet the Psalmist.
His sense of estrangement from God is only heightened by his geographic separation from the temple and its worship. He remembers the joy of former days, how he’d go with the throng to the temple. He passionately desires a renewed experience of that special communion with God that he experienced in public worship. He is thirsty for this, but it ain’t happening.
It is quite possible to be thirsty for God, to seek and serve God, and yet at times not to sense the nearness of God, resulting in a downcast and troubled soul before God.
Those we respect and revere throughout church history are familiar with this experience!
Charles Spurgeon’s recurrent battles with depression… John Piper writes. So was Jonathan Edwards – also suffered from depression. Frequently afflicted by times of spiritual deadness. So was Martin Luther – one time when he wouldn’t respond to encouragement, his wife dressed in black and claimed someone had died. “It seems that God has.”
The Psalmist is more aware of God’s absence than he is of God’s presence.
First, the absence of God. Second, the presence of trials.
Speaking in verses 6-7 about the waterfalls, the breakers rolling over him and the deafening sound. He is not only aware of the seeming absence of God, he is very aware of the presence of trials in his life. Perhaps you can relate in some way. Perhaps you are lonely. Perhaps you came alone. It doesn’t appear you have friends, and everyone else has many friends. You are intimate friends with loneliness on a daily basis.
Or perhaps you thought you’d be married by now. And you’ve begun to think, will I ever get married?
Perhaps chronic debilitating sickness in some form, quite uncommon for your age.
Trials, like waves, like breakers, ceaselessly roll over you.
Finally, it appears he was affected by the opposition of man as well.
“while they say to me continually, Where is your God?” oppression of enemies, adversaries taunt me.
If you are a college student, you will know opposition. If you identify yourself as a Christian, and with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the authority and content of Scripture. The world is hostile to God and His word. To some degree, you will receive opposition from this culture.
That opposition can affect your soul. It was affecting the soul of the Psalmist. He was troubled in his soul. As he conversed with himself in his soul about these things, his soul was troubled and in turmoil. These themes form a ceaseless conversation that appeared never to end.
But, by God’s grace, they did end. Notice that there is an intervention in this unending conversation in the soul of the psalmist. It is particularly noteworthy and instructive for us to note how he responds to his troubled soul. This is critical to notice and apply.
2.
The Hopeful Soul
What is the appropriate response? The Psalmist models it: the appropriate response is (1) talk to yourself, and (2) talk to God.
(1)
Talk to yourself
The Psalmist does not ignore or encourage his soul. He interrupts it, interrogates it, rebukes it, and challenges it. This makes all the difference in his soul. Too often this practice is neglected by those who are troubled in their soul.
I first became aware of this practice years ago while reading a book called Spiritual Depression by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He writes: “I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us. Do you realize what that means? I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression is this: that we allow ourselves to talk to us instead of talking to ourselves…. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
Most of us have spent years listening to ourselves. Talking to yourself is a learned skill. It requires practice and it involves effort. This won’t happen effortlessly. Our troubled souls need the continuous addressing with truth – with the truth of the Gospel. Some of us are reaping the effect of years of listening to our soul instead of talking to our soul. But you can begin tonight! If you employ this practice, by God’s grace it will have a transforming effect on your soul and you will notice the difference in your soul.
OK, so what do I say?
Good news: The Psalmist provides us with a starter’s kit for talking to your soul. He refuses to be governed by the subjective. Troubled souls cannot be trusted, and circumstances often lie to us. The Psalmist DETERMINES to hope in God. He exhorts his troubled soul to remember God. (God hadn’t forgotten him, he’s forgotten God!) Hope in God. Remember God. This forms the content of your conversation to your soul. “I shall again praise him.” At some point in the future I will again look upon the goodness of the Lord. When we can’t praise God’s hand we must trust God’s heart. “My salvation and my God.” He reminds himself of his relationship with God. “My God will save me.”
This forms the content of what you say to your soul. In some ways it depends on what is troubling your soul. Search the Scriptures for words about the troubles that you have now. Then by the grace of God, speak to your soul with the promises of God. These promises will transform your soul from a troubled soul to a hopeful soul. Talk to yourself.
(2)
Talk to God
He addresses God with His Word. I love the reference to singing! You’ve already experienced the fruit of talking to God and talking to your soul through singing.
The reason we are rarely troubled in the midst of corporate worship is because we are talking to our soul, singing truth to our soul, and in worship talking to God and rehearsing the promises of God to God. The effect of that upon our soul is hope, joy, affection, and awareness of God, and trust in God.
“God’s promises were never meant to be thrown aside as waste paper. He intended that they should be used. Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see His promises put into circulation.. DO you think that God will be any the poorer for giving you the riches He has promised? He has said, “Come now, let us reason together…. etc” Faith embraces the promise of pardon. It goes straight to the throne and pleads, Lord, Here is the promise. Do as you promised. Lord, I have nothing to recommend me but this, You hace said it. Our heavenly banker delights to cash his own notes. He LOVES to hear the loud outcries of needy souls. He is more ready to hear than you are to ask. It is in God’s nature to keep His promises. Therefore, go at once to the throne with, “Do as you promised.” – Spurgeon
The more time you spend talking to yourself and speaking to God… the less time you will spend listening to your soul and the more you will experience a joyful and hopeful soul rather than a downcast and a troubled soul.
We cannot read this psalm without remembering our savior’s uniquely troubled soul as his death on the cross drew near. He may have been alluding to this psalm when he said “Now is my soul troubled.” The Savior’s soul was uniquely sorrowful as he contemplated his impending encounter with the wrath of God. On the cross He would be forsaken by God.
The Psalmist felt forsaken by God. The Savior WAS forsaken by God.
The Savior’s soul was uniquely tormented so that the souls of sinners like us would know freedom from the fear of eternal torment of soul in hell. Because of this we can say to our soul, “Why are you cast down? Why are you in turmoil? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
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