Summer in the Psalms
Psalm 42 :The Dark Night of the Soul
Pastor Jefferson M., Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
7-18-2021
A Near Death Encounter
Have you ever been so sad that you just wanted to give up? Maxine and I had an experience with someone last weekend that was in that very place of hopelessness. Let me explain.
We were driving back from Bloomington on 66 when we noticed a car stopped across the road about a mile away. At first, we thought it might be a police car blocking the road. But then we noticed a young man standing in front of the car. Then the car turned around into our lane…and floored it!
The car was headed straight for us in our lane. Neither of us could wrap our minds around what was happening. The car wasn’t moving. It was going to hit us head on. I screamed, “She’s gone to hit us” multiple times and then, and Maxine experienced this as well, everything went to into slow motion.
Maxine swerved and, at the very last second, the car veered into the other lane, missing us by inches.
We stopped and asked the young man if he knew what was going on. He said that the girl driving the car was his girlfriend and her mother had told her she should kill herself.
That’s what had happened. We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was trying to commit suicide but she would have taken us out with her. I’m thankful that she obviously changed her mind at the last second.
You may wonder how a person could be so hopeless that they would want to run into another car head on. I don’t feel any judgement toward her. In fact, I tried all week to find her. I wanted to her that I’ve been there and that there is hope when there seems to be no hope at all.
According to the CDC, suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 34, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44 in 2019.
According to the National Health Interview Survey in 2020, the percentage of adults who experienced any symptoms of depression was highest among those aged 18–29 (21.0%), followed by those aged 45–64 (18.4%) and 65 and over (18.4%), and lastly, by those aged 30–44 (16.8%).
5.8% of men and 9.5% of women will experience a depressive episode in any given year.
This morning, we are going to look at psalm that was written by someone experiencing deep sadness. They are depressed, discouraged, downcast, and they are grasping for hope in the dark night of the soul.
Maybe that’s you today or it described someone you know or love. My prayer is that God would use His Word to bring hope to hopeless and to bring light to the darkness.
Turn with me to Psalm 42.
Prayer.
Background
Who wrote the psalm? The author is listed as the “Sons of Korah.” In Book 1 of the Psalms (1-41), David is the author of 37 of them and the other four are anonymous. In Book 2, (42-72), there are multiple authors including Asaph, Solomon, the Sons of Korah.
Who is Korah? I’m glad you asked. He led a rebellion against Moses and God actually had the earth open under his feet and swallowed him alive. You can find that story in Numbers 16.
The descendants of Korah became part of the Levitical priesthood, specifically temple musicians. It is one of these musicians that wrote this Psalm.
Technically, it is a “maskil.” This word meaning isn’t clear but it’s something like a skillfully written piece of art to convey wisdom.
This is a brutally honest Psalm with graphic imagery and heart wrenching cries of anguish to God.
Let’s play a quick game of true or false.
People who love God can get very depressed. True
Martin Luther’s wife once dressed in all black and went about mourning. Martin asked her who died. She responded, “By the way you’re acting, God did.”
Charles Spurgeon, one of the greatest preachers of the last 500 years, wrote, “Depression was a horror of great darkness where the light of God was continually lost to me.”
William Cowper is considered one of the founders of the English Romantic Movement and wrote several famous hymns like “Oh for a Closer Walk with God,” “God moves in mysterious ways” and “There is a fountain filled with blood.” William was in and out of mental institutions and attempted suicide multiple times.
There are people who have brain chemistry issues that can cause them to be depressed. [I’m one of them one]
Taking medicine for depression shows a lack of faith. [I take medicine]
The best thing you can say to someone who is depressed is “Get over it!” [No!]
[Inside out clip]
What we see in Psalm 42 is what Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones called “spiritual depression.”
In earlier times, it has been called melancholy. It’s that state where you hear others talking about what God is doing in their lives and you feel completely numb. You try to pray and you feel like your prayers bounce off the ceiling. You watch others worshiping and feel like you are thousand miles away from that kind of joy.
How does the Psalmist describe his sorrows?
Let’s look at the first part of the song.
Longing for God
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Longing
First, we hear the Psalmist’s deep longing for God. He compares it to a deer that has been pursued by a hunter or predator that is exhausted and dehydrated, panting as she searches for water.
I remember running a race in the middle of July one year when the temperatures were in the 90s. When I finished the race, I say down in the middle of the road and started drinking bottles of water one after the other. I was literally panting and Maxine started to get worried about me.
The Jewish people singing this song would automatically be reminded of the prediction of drought in Joel 1:20:
“Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up…” (Joel 1:20)
Notice that he calls God the “living God.” God is the source of life , in fact, He is life, and He is alive as opposed to the false gods made of wood and stone.
God is the source of living water, even in the times of extreme drought.
Like the deer, his soul thirsts for God. The literal Hebrew states, “When can I enter and see the face of the Lord?”
The Psalmist wasn’t longing for the Temple building, or the ceremonies related to it. His soul was longing for God’s presence.
Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Ease he did not seek, honor he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need for his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolutely necessity, like water to a thirsty deer.”
Have you been in this emotional/spiritual place of deep soul longing?
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)
Tears and Taunting
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
The Psalmist can’t eat, which is a typical sign of depression, lack of appetite. Not only is he not eating, he overwhelmed with sadness to the point where he is crying day and night.
Do you know it’s okay to cry? Even guys? I’ve always sad that the fact that we cry is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. Tears speak for us when the pain is so deep that words won’t cut it.
People around him are watching him experience this deep soul crushing sadness and their response is to taunt him, “Where is your God? It looks like He has abandoned you.”
Have you ever been there? Have your tears been your food day and night? Have you felt the sting of being mocked for your faith in God in the midst of your sadness?
Remembering
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.” (Psalm 42:1-4)
In Hebrew thought, the idea of remembering is “a deliberate act act of calling to mind.” A call to remember is a call to action.
As he pours out his soul to God with tears and a panting heart, he remembers how he used to have so much joy in worship at the Temple. In fact, he might have been the leader of the worship in this context.
He misses the corporate worship of the feasts, the singing, the dancing, the shouts of joy, the sense of belonging, the shared experience of the presence of God among them.
I remember talking to a student once who loved to sing her heart out to God in times of musical worship. One day, she told me that she was mad at God because of the terrible home that she had to grow up in and that she found herself unable to raise her hands or voice in worship because she wasn’t going to fake like she was okay. This actually made her sad because she missed the joy of praising God with others.
The Psalmist remembers his past experiences with the presence of God in times of corporate worship and it just makes him more discouraged.
Have you been there? I have. I remember a time after we came back from Florida, the I refused to listen to any Christian music. Most of it, especially on the radio, was trite and shallow and I just wasn’t going to fake being joyful when my heart was breaking.
Talking to yourself
This brings us to the refrain that ends the first section of the Psalm:
“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.” (Psalm 42:5)
We will see this refrain two more times before we are done today.
The Psalmist pauses and asks himself why he is so downcast and then reminds himself to put his hope in God.
Do you talk to yourself? If you do, you aren’t crazy because it’s normal to talk to ourselves. But the real question is are we listening to ourselves or talking to ourselves?
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones wrote a classic book partly based on this verse entitled, “Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and its Cure.”
The good doctor words are important to hear:
“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? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.”
Jon Acuff, a Christian writer I love, calls this our “soundtracks” in his name book of the same name. He makes the case that we talk to ourselves more than any other person in your life and what we say can make or break us.
Dr. Jones gives us an example of a soundtrack that you can remind yourself of:
“The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet priase Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.”
When the dark night of the soul presses in around us, we must learn to preach truth to ourselves, the remind ourselves that this too shall pass, that God is still good, that the sun is still shining behind the clouds of doom.
From Afar
Let’s look at the second half of the Psalm now. Even though the author reminds himself to hope in God, he continues to be discouraged and depressed.
“My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.” (v. 6)
The word soul in Hebrew means “the whole of a person with a focus on their desires and needs.”
Because of this inner turmoil, he again decides to remember God. In this verse, we now begin to understand one of the reasons why is so sad.
Distance
He is in the land of the Jordan, the heights of the Hermon mountain range, which included Mount Mizar. He is very very far away from Jerusalem and the Temple of God.
Some commentators theorize that this was written during the exile in Babylon and that the Psalmist is longing for home.
Others say it this son of Korah was with David when he was on the run after his son Absalom led a coup against him.
In any case, there are circumstances that are causing his discouragement and sadness.
Feeling far away from God’s presence and blessing can cause your heart to hurt.
But the death of a spouse, divorce, abuse, loss of a job, sickness, loss of friendships, chronic pain, and a lack of fulfillment in life can all lead to dark clouds that hide the sunlight of God’s face.
In fact, the author actually feels like he is drowning under the weight of his depression.
Overwhelmed
“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” (7)
He thinks back to the waters of creation and then hears the roar of the waterfalls at the head of the Jordan river and feels like he is in the ocean with wave after wave pounding him.
I took a group of students to the beach once not long after a hurricane had skirted the coast. The waves were huge and we spent the entire afternoon trying to jump over them. But if you didn’t get over to the top of the wave, it would slam you to the sand and you would feel like you were in a washing machine.
Some of you feel that way right now. You feel overwhelmed and that each new wave could be the end.
After my mom died, my dad told me that grief was like standing on a beach and noticing a small wave on the horizon of an otherwise still ocean. That wave grew and grew until it was a monster wave. When he would try to run, he found his feet stuck on the beach. The wave would crash over him and he would nearly drowned and then the ocean would be still again.
The author does something very interesting here. He reminds us of God’s sovereignty. Did you see it? It’s “your” waterfalls and “your waves and breakers” that sweep over the psalmist.
Even in the midst of being overwhelmed and nearly drowning, the psalmist recognizes that in the midst of chaos and terror, God is not on vacation. He is still in charge.
And even in the darkness of the perfect storm, God’s faithful love endures forever.
Hesed
"By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.” (8)
Something you don’t see in the English is that most of this song addresses God as Elohim but here he calls God Yahweh, the covenant keeping God.
The word love is “hesed,” - God’s faithful, covenant, forever love.
He is reminding himself of what is true, whether he feels it or not. God’s love hasn’t left him and, even in the dark night of the soul, God still sings over him a love song.
When I worked at the psychiatric hospital at night, sometimes I would listen to a radio show from Moody called, “Songs in the Night.” It was a reminder that even at night, when things seems darkest, God was watching over me with his love.
Just as soon as he reminds himself of God’s love, his questions return.
Forget me Not
“I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (9-11)
We are not to question God’s goodness but it’s always okay to ask God questions.
The psalmist feels forgotten by God, abandoned. Even after reminding himself of the truth that God’s love is faithful, his heart argues with his mind.
He is in mourning and feels oppressed by his enemies. This could be his earthly enemies or the enemy of his soul that wants to steal his hope, kill his dreams, and destroy his life.
Sometimes discouragement and depression are the result of spiritual warfare. Satan hates you with a passion of a thousand hot suns and will do whatever it takes to turn you from the goodness of God.
He is experiencing physical symptoms as well - his bones suffer mortal agony. When discouraged, our bodies tell the tale.
Proverbs 17:22:
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Depression can cause sleep disturbances, (see Job 7:4, 13-15), tiredness (Psalm 6:6; 69:3), wight fluctuations (Job 17:7; 19:20), digestive problems (Lam 3:15, Psalm 102:4), bodily pain (Psalm 31:10; 32:3-4; 38:3), and choking feelings and breathlessness (Psalm 69:1-2).
When someone comes to be for counseling for depression, the very first thing I recommend is a full checkup from their doctor, including bloodwork.
“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”? C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Again, he is surrounded by foes that mock him, asking where is your God?
A Last Reminder
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. (11)
He ends the psalm, not with three easy steps to overcoming discouragement but with another conversation with himself.
He preaches to himself that God is trustworthy and hope is found only in Him. I love that he writes, “for I will yet praise Him.” He can’t see it no but he knows that his heart will be okay.
There is a very interesting dynamic in this verse and verse five that you can’t see in the English.
In the NIV, the Hebrew is translated, “my Savior and my God,” but the literally Hebrew in verse five is “the countenance of Your face.” He looks to God’s face to see His saving love.
In verse 11, it is different. It reads, “the countenance of my face.” Knowing that there is hope, that he will yet praise God, that God is a saving God, literally changes the psalmist face. In the middle of discouragement, he can still have joy knowing he is not alone and that God’s forever love will shepherd him through these hard times.
Depression and the Bible
Naomi Osaka, the 23 year old tennis super star, who is ranked 2nd in the world, and made 55 million dollars in 2020, skipped the news conference after her first match at the French Open because she wanted to safeguard her mental well being.
The officials fined her $15,000 and threatened to suspend her from the tournament. Instead, she withdrew from the tournament announcing that she was struggling with depression. Some tweeted their support while others mocked her.
Just this week, Liz Cambage, superstar Australian basketball player, pulled out of the Olympics. She said in an interview:
“It’s no secret that in the past I’ve struggled with my mental health and recently I’ve been really worried about heading into a 'bubble' Olympics. No family. No friends. No fans. No support system outside of my team. It’s honestly terrifying for me. The past month I have been having panic attacks, not sleeping and not eating."
As we scan the pages of the Bible, we find many characters that were discouraged and depressed - Moses, Hannah, Jeremiah (called the weeping prophet), Elijah (suicidal), Job (cursed the day of his birth), and many of the writes of the psalms.
In fact, Pastor Steve Bloem writes,
“The Psalms treat depression more realistically than many of today’s popular books on Christianity and psychology. David and the other psalmist often found themselves deeply depressed for various reasons. They did not however apologize for what they were feeling, nor did they confess it as sin. It was a legitimate part of their relationship with God. They interacted with Him through the context of their depression.”
While this is obvious, in today’s Christian culture, mental health issues are often misunderstood and people dealing with them made to feel even worse.
John Lockley wrote,
“Being depressed is bad enough in itself, but being a depressed Christian is worse. And being a depressed Christian in a church full of people who do not understand depression is like a little taste of hell.”
In his helpful little book, “Christians get Depressed Too,” Professor David Murray encourages us to avoid the extremes of “depression is always caused by physical issues, the school of thought that depression is always caused by spiritual issues, or that depression is all in the mind.”
Let me make five comments as a counselor that I believe are important for us to know as a church.
* We should approach the issues of depression and anxiety with humility and patience. We are all humans, fragile jars of clay, who struggle in any number of ways.
Depressed people are not problems to be fixed, or projects to managed. They are our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and fellow church members.
While sin can lead to depression (repented of), not all depression can be traced back to sin. To say to a depressed person that their feelings are sinful, or that they don’t have enough faith, or that if they were a “good Christian”, they could snap out of it, is flat out spiritual abuse.
When I went to Trinidad and Tobago and share my story with a group of pastors, I mentioned that I take medicine for depression, one of the pastors cornered me afterwards and asked how I could show so little faith in God to take medicine. I asked if he would say the same thing to a diabetic who took insulin or someone with high blood pressure that took medicine. He tried to make the case that those things were different.
We need to know the difference between reactive depression that is triggered by a obvious life event and endogenous depression that has a genetic or biological origin. There are people who are simply more sad, more fearful, more depressed simply because of brain chemistry. We need to be aware, of life events that people go through and the possibility that it could lead to depression.
We say that the church is not a social club but a hospital for hurting souls. If that is true, then someone who is experiencing depression and discouragement should be able to find hope and healing in our community of faith. Let’s make sure that’s true.
False Soundtracks
Remember our discussion of soundtracks? People with depression have unhelpful soundtracks running through their mind.
David Murray lists several of these false thinking patterns. Let me share four:
False Generalization:
A young man asks girl out and she says no. He says to himself, “It’s no use. There’s something wrong with me. This will happen every time I try to ask a girl out. I’m going to be lonely the rest of my life.
False Filter:
You take ask example that you studied really hard on and get a 90%. But instead of being proud of the grade, you are devastated and all you can focus on is the questions you got wrong.
False mind reading
A friend walks past you in the hall at work and doesn’t respond back when you say good morning. You say to yourself, “I knew he didn’t like me.” [He was actually late for a meeting]
False shoulds
A mother of three toddlers sets the alarm for 4:00 am so she can do her quiet time. But two of the kids were up half the night and she sleeps through the alarm. She says to herself, “I’m a terrible Christian. I know God is mad at me. I’m a failure.”
My mother-in-law taught me that “Thou should not should on thyself.”
While we often cannot change our circumstances, we can change the false way we think about what’s happening in our lives.
Preach to Yourself
I asked others who struggle with depression on FaceBook what helped when they were sad. Here are some of their answers.
How do we do that? By reminding ourselves of what is true and right.
What are some things we need to remind ourselves of when in the dark night of the soul?
Remind yourself how much God loves you. If you ever question that, just look to the cross.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
* Remind yourself that it’s okay not to be okay. I love what writer Anne Lamott writes,
“It’s okay to say that you crazy and discouraged because all the best people are.”
By the way, writers seem to have a propensity to get depressed - Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Dostoevsky, Ernest Hemingway and J.K. Rowling to name just a few.
So do comedians, or the “sad clown syndrome,” that is illustrated best by Robin Williams who said, “I think the saddest people try their hardest to make other people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else feeling like that.
Find a place where it is safe to be the real you. Robin Williams also said,
“All it takes is a beautiful fake smile to hide an injured soul and they will never notice how broken you really are.”
Remind yourself of the Gospel. Preach it yourself every morning.
that you have been justified before God, legally declared righteous before God.
“If God is for you, who can be against you?” (Rom 8:31)
that you are in the process of sanctification - God is making you more and more like Jesus every day. You are a work in progress.
“…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 1:6)
That you will experience glorification - hope in the future when we will spend eternity with God in a place where sadness is no more.
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” — the things God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor 2:9)
That you have been adopted into God’s family and there is nothing that you can do or feel that would make God love you any less.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
Remind yourself that the truth God hasn’t abandoned you. In fact, He and promised “to never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deut 31:6)
Remind yourself that God is often doing deep work in our souls when He feels like He is hiding His face.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” (Rom 8:28-29)
Blogger Kristen Couch recently wrote these beautiful words to herself:
Hold on. There is purpose in your suffering. There is goodness in your lack. Be honest with others in the sharing of your struggles. Keep your Bible open, and pray. God loves you, and he is going to lead you directly though situations far worse than this moment. Trust him. There will be years of fiery furnace living, and God is THERE. You will also experience tremendous joys, and God is THERE. Remember: His ways are not ours, and your faith will be tested. Press into him, because you are his. Study Job. Read Jonah. Immerse yourself in the Psalms. Comfort your spirit in the Gospel. Heaven is coming. Obey God and you will grow, as the dross of life melts away in the pain of refinement. God is working. Formation in affliction will cost dearly, but it will also make you.
Pastor Scott Sauls wrote on is blog concerning his struggles with depression,
“Though I wouldn’t wish anxiety and depression on anyone, I’m strangely thankful for the way these affirmatives have lead me again and again back into the rest of God.”
I asked on Facebook how people deal with depression. Here are some of their answers:
Prayer, meditation, running, working out, doing something for someone else, sunshine, walking barefoot in the grass, sleep, dancing, writing in my journal, car ride with the windows down, coffee, cooking, taking my medication, playing with grandchildren.
I love what our friend Casey wrote: “the freedom to use the name of Jesus as a weapon.”
Jesus in Psalm 42
With each psalm, we are ending with the question, where is Jesus in the Psalm?
Remember, Jesus knew these songs by heart and grew up singing them with his family and with others in worship.
Jesus knows what it is to thirst:
On the cross, Jesus quotes Psalm 69:21 and said, “I thirst.” But his mind could also have ben thinking about Psalm 42 and his longing thirst for communion with His Father.
Jesus knows what it feels like to mocked and taunted:
As He hung in our place to pay for our sins, people mocked and taunted Him:
“He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.” (Matt 27:42)
Jesus knows what it feel like to experience deep sadness:
In the garden before His arrest, as He prayed, He told the disciples,
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matt 26:38)
Jesus knows the feeling of being abandoned and forgotten by God:
And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ). (Mark 15:34)
In the midst of the dark night of the soul, Jesus, the Man of Sorrows who is acquainted with grief, stands with us and promises to never leave or forsake us.
[Anna and the Bridge video]
Another thing that people listed again and again that helped them was singing, specifically corporate worship. So that’s how we are going to end today.
?
