Title: Holding On
Text: Psalm 42 and 43
Having just heard the text you know doubt caught the gist of the Psalmist’s state of mind. If he was not depressed, he was most certainly discouraged and despondent about the circumstances of his life and the effect the change in circumstances has had on his spiritual and emotional life.
We have all called the number of an office or business only to have an automated voice give us a menu from which to select to whom we wish to speak. I recently (not really) called a Psychiatric Hotline and was give the following menu:
Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.
• If you are obsessive compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
• If you are co-dependent, please ask someone else to press 2.
• If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
• If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want.
• If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
• If you are depressed, it doesn’t matter which number you press. No one will answer.
The author of the Psalm we have just read was depressed and he had zero sense of God’s presence and activity in his life. As we make our way through Psalms 42 and 43 I think you will see that he was “holding-on” for dear life.
Thesis: Sometimes in the ebb and flow of our emotions, the most spiritual thing we can do is hold-on.
It is a text that speaks to the dryness and the depths of despair we may experience during times of depression… but it also speaks to a down-deep determination to get through it when it happens to us.
Introduction
There is a story of a mother who was distressed about her son’s resistance to going to church. She said, “You go to the movies and have fun. You go out with your friends and have fun. You text, twitter and e-mail and have fun. You go over to your friends’ houses and they come here and you have fun. Why is it that you can’t go to church for just one hour each week?” After a thoughtful moment the young man said, “Mom, what would you think if you were invited to somebody’s house and every time you went, the guy was never there?”
There have been a few times in my life when I could identify with what that young man was feeling. Sometimes, when you least expect it and can least afford to feel that way, it feels like God has gone missing.
In 1952 Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, wrote a little booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws. The first law was, “God Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life.” The hope of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ was the Good News.
In the 4 Spiritual Laws booklet there was a memorable illustration of a train that was by design to be helpful in keeping the elements of our faith in perspective. Granted, modern day trains do not have cabooses… rather they may be pulled for several locomotives and pushed by several more in the place where the caboose once trailed along. But use you imaginations and remember the old-time trains… the trains that had an engine, a coal car and a caboose.
1. First there was the Engine : The engine represents the facts about God and God’s Word. The engine tells us that God has promised us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. I John 5:11-13
2. Next the coal car: The Coal Car represents our trust in God and God’s Word. The bible says that God has given us eternal life in Christ and if we have Christ in our lives we know we have eternal life. So essentially we live by faith in the facts about God and God’s Word.
3. And finally, the Caboose brings up the rear: The caboose represents our feelings or emotions in regard to faith and facts. On a good day our feelings represent the results of that trust. However, we have to remember that feelings or emotions are exactly that… feelings or emotions. A Christian life lived on the basis of emotions or feelings will not go far. Not train is ever pulled by a caboose.
The problem is many people think the train isn’t really a train unless there are Facts, Faith and Spiritual Goose Bumps. In essence they attempt to fuel their faith with feelings. And the real tragedy is that if they do not have spiritual goose bumps they lose their faith in the promises of God and God’s Word, i.e., I do not feel, therefore my faith is not legitimate and God is absent and/or non-existent.
Our text today is very much an expression of a man’s feelings or emotions. However it is also a man’s expressed desire to live by faith in a loving God and his Word. He does not discount his feelings… they are very real. But his focus is on holding on and finding his way back to hope.
But we learn from out text that faith doesn’t always feel good.
I. Hold on even when you don’t feel God in the present. Faith does not always feel good.
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Psalm 42:1-2 (Sense the desperation and dryness and the exhaustion of that deer.)
In the first five verses of Psalm 42 the Psalmist speaks to his depressed or discouraged state in terms of:
• He feels spiritual dryness or thirst: My soul thirsts for the living God.
• He feels sadness: Tears have been my food day and night.
• He feels like an object of ridicule: Men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
• He feels the loss of joy: I used to go, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
The man in our text has experienced a change in his circumstances and this change of circumstances has affected his emotions. He misses his old God and his old life circumstances and his old feelings. He used to feel close to God. He used to be happy. He used to be proud of who he was and respected by others. He used to be a spiritual leader in his faith community. But now he is a broken and defeated man awash in his depression.
Years ago I read a book by Martin Lloyd Jones on the subject of depression. He aptly pointed out that the key words in Psalm 42 and 43 are: “I” “Me” and “My” Martin Lloyd-Jones would say that self-centeredness is the cause of depression. I don’t know if that be true or not but I do know that when we get depressed we tend to be self-centered. If you were to take your bibles and circle the words,”I” and “me” and “my” you would find that the Psalmist says those words forty-two (42) times in sixteen (16) verses. In other words, he says “I,” “me,” or “my” an average of 2.6 times in every verse. Depressed people are notoriously self-absorbed people. They become zeroed in on themselves and the circumstances of their lives… and not in a good way.
However, he holds on and he talks to himself in verse 5:
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Put your hope in God for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
After having this little talk with himself, he resumes his struggle with the darkness in his soul by remembering the past. And so we have a second bit of advice.
II. Hold on to your memories of God’s presence in the past. Feeling bad in the present does not prevent us from remembering God’s faithfulness in the past.
My soul is downcast within me, therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan and the heights of Hermon – from Mt. Mizar. Psalm 42:6
Even though the man in our text feels abandoned by God in the present, he remembers times in the past when he felt the presence of God.
• He thinks of the roar of a mountain waterfall cascading over a mountain cliff and crashing down into a pool in the valley where it continues its course toward the sea.
• The majestic power of waves driven by wind and the tides pushing in from the deep and accelerating upward against the shallowing incline until they break and rush up onto the sandy beach where they wash harmlessly around his bare feet before slipping back into the ocean.
• The man remembers the power of cascading and crashing water and the man remembers swimming in the cool refreshing waters of the pool beneath the waterfall and wading in the warm waters of the seas surf and he thinks of the powerful, peace-giving presence of God in his life in the past…
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. Psalm 42:7
• He remembers how he sensed God directing his life day by day and he remembers how he sensed the peace of God as he drifted off to sleep at night.
By day the Lord directs his love and at night his song is with me. Psalm 42:8
He may not feel good about his faith and he may have not sense God’s presence and activity in his life, but he remembers when he did… and he wonders why he feels like he feels:
• Why have you forsaken me God?
• Why must I go on mourning?
• Why do my bones ache and why do my foes taunt me?
However, he is still holding on and he talks to himself again in Psalm 42:11:
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will het praise him, my Savior and my God.
The fact that we may not feel God in the present does not preclude the fact that we have felt God’s presence in the past. And, given the fact that we have experienced God’s presence in the past give us hope that we may once again feel his presence in the future.
III. Hold on to the hope of sensing God’s presence in the future by praying.
Vindicate me, O God. You are my stronghold. Send forth you light and your truth, let them guide me. Then I will go to the altar of God, to god, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. Psalm 43:1-4
He prayed even though he did not feel like praying and had no sense that God would hear him or act in his behalf.
In my devotional reading I came across a statement by E.M. Bounds that has had me thinking all week: “Failure to pray entails losses far beyond the person who neglects it.”
I understand that his comment is highly subjective and speculative… but I wonder what we might be unconsciously losing when we fail to seek God’s intervention and blessing in our lives. If ever there is a time when we need to pray and can ill-afford to lose out on God’s intervention and blessing, it is when we are discouraged and depressed.
So if the Psalmist is any kind of example for us we need to pray for:
• Our spouses and for healthy marriages;
• Provision for our financial needs;
• Healing for our bodies;
• Peace for the world;
• Safety for our armed forces;
• Wisdom for our political leaders;
• Salvation for our loved ones;
• Blessing for ourselves and the ones we love;
If we are discouraged about something we must muster the determination to pray for God to make himself present and active in that circumstance.
• “Failure to pray entails losses far beyond the person who neglects it.”
The man in our text is not out the woods yet. He is still not feeling it. He has no sense of God’s presence or activity in his life. In fact he still feels abandoned by God.
• But he has done the hard work of holding on when he felt the terrible losses that drug him into the depths of depression.
• He did the hard work of holding on by remembering when he did experience the presence of God in his life.
• And he did the hard work of holding on by praying that God would intervene in his circumstances and restore his former joy.
And then he gave himself another talk:
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope and God, for I will het praise him, my Savior and my God. Palm 43:5
Three times he gave himself that little talk. Three times he questioned himself. Three times he encouraged himself to continue to trust God and three times he expressed the hope that he would “yet” praise God once again.
Conclusion
I believe that God can work through anything and often God does use the most unlikely of instruments to touch lives. Almost twenty years ago the rock group R.E.M. sang a song, “Everybody Hurts.” It was the mainstay of their concerts and the subject of a music video. It was written in the early 90’s in response to the high rate of teenage suicides in England at that time and it spoke powerfully to a generation… and it speaks to me still.
Everybody Hurts by R.E.M.
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone, When you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on. Don’t let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.
Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it’s time to sing along. When your day is night alone, hold on, hold on. If you feel like letting go, hold on. When you think you’ve had too much of this life, well hang on.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes. Everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes. And everybody hurts sometimes, so hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on… everybody hurts. You are not alone.
Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is simply hold on to the fact that God is and that God cares… that is the truth of the matter. Hold on to the hope that we will yet or once again praise God.
This is the promise. This is our hope.
I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
