Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?

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Psalm 42

Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul

by Erik Retallick

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

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 all the day long,
”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 all the day long,
”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.

Many people can probably identify with many of the anguished feelings the Psalmist expresses here, with all the turmoil going on in the world at large, the Middle East and African unrest and their own personal uncertain circumstances and relationships.

Do these things give us a thirst for God, as expressed here (verses 1-2)? Or do we become bitter and say, why should this be happening to me? As one of my mother’s Christian friends who is very ill, and has been for many years responds when people say, “Don’t you question why God lets all these things happen to you?” with the reply, “Why shouldn’t these things happen to me? Like Paul, she seems to count it a privilege to share in the sufferings of her Lord, to be counted worthy enough to suffer.

In between the overwhelming moments of feeling downcast and depressed, the writer of this Psalm expresses some wonderful thoughts, which we would do well to take to heart in these turbulent times.

1) In verse 2 he longs to come and appear before God, to be in His presence, to take delight in being with Him!

2) In verse 4 he recalls the days when he felt liberty in praising God, making his way with a crowd of God’s people singing with joy as they anticipated a forthcoming festival celebration. Do we feel like that on our way to worship the Lord with our brothers and sisters, or is it a case of sighing and thinking, “it’s that day of the week again, I suppose I ought to go.”

3) Verse 6 brings in the hope factor, that essential ingredient of our lives, that helps us to get up in the morning and motivates us to serve the Lord with gladness! He obviously had a real sense of God’s presence in the land of Yarden and the Peaks of Mount Hermon and the hill of Mizar. It does us good when we are downcast to recall those precious moments in our lives where God has touched us in a special way and reminded us how special He is to us and how important we are to Him; even the very hairs of our head are numbered.

4) In verse 9, even though the Psalmist questions why God has deserted him, he refers to God as his Rock, the one and only firm foundation in his life. Again, it does us good when we are going through overwhelming problems, to recall that God is our Rock, whose ways are perfect. Deuteronomy 32:4 says “The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is righteous and straight.”

5) This amazing Psalm, which expresses so many depths of sorrow and anguish, ends with a reaffirmation of faith in our trustworthy God, our Rock. “Hope in God, since I will praise Him again for being my Savior and God.”

Without the walks through the dark valleys and the steep climbs up the rocky mountainsides, how would we ever get to appreciate the mountaintop experiences in our lives? Sometimes the mountaintop experiences may seem far and few between, but they are then all the more precious. Even when his friends and family questioned “Where is your God?” the writer of this Psalm knew deep in his heart that He was there all the time. Likewise, He has promised to “never leave or abandon us” (Hebrews 13:5)

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At the beginning of a New Year, may I first of all wish everyone a Happy and joyful New Year, filled with God's presence and blessings.

I would like to share a few thoughts with you about encouragement. It's a word we use a great deal in Christian circles but what significance does it have to God's people or anyone else, and what exactly does it mean and involve?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are three different senses in which we can use the word "encourage" as a transitive verb, (encouragement being the noun).

1) a. means to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope as in the phrase, "she was encouraged to continue by her early success.

Here it would mean that we hearten (lift up the heart in someone) when we give encouragement.

b. means to attempt to persuade, as in the phrase, "they encouraged him to go back to school."

In this sense it means to urge someone onwards in the wonderful and positive actions they are engaged in, when we encourage them.

2) Another definition is "to spur on" as used in the phrase, "warm weather encourages plant growth. In this sense, encouragement implies stumulation to someone else, an energizing and motivating force.

3) Another sense in which the word "encourage" is used is "to give help or patronage to someone or a cause." The government grants designed to encourage conservation" is a phrase which uses it in this way.

In this way it is like fostering someone or something.

None of us would be the people we are currently unless we had received some form of encouragement in at least one of these meanings of the word, especially through our parent(s) and education, however basic either our up-bringing or education may have been.

Very often in our lives and even in our walk with God we need to encourage ourselves or get through by encouragement we have received in the past. It's rather like a car needing fuel to run, it has to be tanked up regularly or it grinds to a halt!

In his first letter to the Thessalonian church Paul says, "Encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV). In other words, it was a work that was already going on and he encourages (urges) them to keep on encouraging (heartening and stimulating) one another. In verse 14 he goes on to say, "And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all." (ESV)

Paul's letters in the New Testament were written mainly for the encouragement of Christians who were going through all kinds of difficulties, temptation, persecution, suffering, materialism and over-indulgence, false teaching to name some of their problems. In other words, they were human, just like you and me and we are no strangers to the same things 2000 years later. Technology may advance, the spread of information and travel are faster and more widespread, but human nature and the effects of sin unfortunately remain the same.

If you want to have a go at a bit of "Do-it-yourself" Bible study and you are a good mathematician, it would be interesting to see how many references to the word encouragement are made in the letters Paul wrote to the early churches. Then add to this total the number of times he encourages them to do good works and encourage one another.

I want to pinpoint one particular exhortation, which can be found in Hebrews 10:24-25. " Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." The day he refers to is obviously the return of our Lord Jesus and he underlines the need for us to draw closer together by gathering for fellowship in church services and smaller groups, rather than become more isolated as Christians. In today's world there is always the excuse that we can watch a Christian TV broadcast, listen to internet radio or a podcast. However, we may be depriving ourselves of the opportunity to give and receive fellowship and have meaningful human interaction.

I wish you every encouragement for 2011, and you can take this to mean being "heartened", "spurred on" in your walk with God and service to Him and "given help" by others and by our great Lord Himself who equips us to carry out the service He has called us to do.