Psalm 42
November 9, 2008
With everything we have in America, depressive disorders still affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year. This includes major depressive disorders, dysthymic disorders, and bipolar disorders. Statistics show:
· Everyone will at some time in their life be affected by depression -- their own or someone else's, according to Australian Government statistics. (Depression statistics in Australia are comparable to those of the US and UK.)
· Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers -- over a million -- are clinically depressed.
(http://www.upliftprogram.com/depression_stats.html)
In the two hours I researched depression, I could not find any website or book that delineated the impact our Christian faith has on these statistics. The Bible makes no claim to be a medical or psychological handbook; to seek medical treatment in the words of the Bible is naïve. However, most medical and psychological doctors differentiate between clinical depression or major depressive disorders and episodic depression or temporary depression or “sad moods”. Someone suffering from clinical depression should seek professional help and may need medication to recover or function at a higher level.
Psalm 42, however, shows us how we should fight against the “blues” that seem to strike all of us from time to time. Psalm 42 shows us both a number of reasons why we struggle some times and offers us a way to positively overcome these times that war against us.
The Psalm begins:
For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for
God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Numbers 16 tells the story of Korah and his rebellion against the leadership of Moses and particularly Aaron in his position as the High Priest. Korah and his immediate family were destroyed by an earthquake that swallowed them and their property as God judged them. Instead of becoming high priests, the sons of Korah became the Levites who led worship in the Temple. This psalm speaks of one of the sons of Korah who has been cut off from this experience of worshipping God in the Temple. As such Psalm 42 speaks to many of us, who for one reason or another are no longer able to experience corporate worship in God’s house. This psalm is saying that since we were created to worship God in an assembly of believers, the absence of corporate worship experiences can lead to depression. When the world was still without sin, when the world still existed in the state God described as “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31), He still said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18). Loneliness in general, and for Christian people, to be away from the fellowship of other Christians will generally lead to some degree of spiritual depression. God was Triune, in eternal fellowship, and He created us in His image. One aspect of God’s image is to be in relationship. The psalmist likens spiritual loneliness to extreme thirst—an unremitting drive that must be satiated or satisfied.
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
Loneliness is compounded by the taunts of others who ridicule what we are experiencing. It hurts to be made fun of no matter what our age is or how mature we think we are. Actual rejection or even the fear of being rejected can cause us to do a lot of things of which we are not proud. When we hurt our hurt is often compounded by our wondering where God is while we are going through this time, why He is allowing this to happen to us, or maybe even what we have done to deserve what is happening. Our own nagging doubts are hard even to overcome, but when unbelievers not only verbalize our thoughts but do so in a taunting, vindictive way it hurts even more. Satan tempted Jesus by putting the words, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:40) in the mouths of those Jesus came to save.
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of
God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.
Memories are a precious gift. They keep those we have loved and lost close to us. They allow us to relive special moments and share them with loved ones or to use them to help people. But our memories can also be used against us. Escaping into “I remember how it was in the good old days” instead of dealing with today’s realities can worsen our negative moods or our depression. Here the psalmist, in his times of separation from the church, recounts her best memories of what he experienced in the past. We will see in a few minutes how important the proper use of our memories can be.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
This verse describes the way most of us end up finding ourselves in trouble. Most of us can handle a set back or a couple of problems, especially if they are of a shorter duration. But when problems seem to come like the waves of the ocean—when deep calls to deep, when problems roar down upon us like a waterfall, when problems keep coming one after another after another in a seemingly ceaseless manner, it seems only human to want to escape. We wonder whether or not we have reached our limit; we swear we cannot take on one more problem or demand for our time. I imagine just about everyone of us have felt like our problems have buried us or carried us away.
9 I say to God…
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"
If we get to the point where we truly believe God has forgotten about us or completely rejected us, if we truly believe our problems, our enemies are stronger than we are and we are without hope, we are very close to crossing over into clinical depression. When we reach that point, only two words stand between a quick recovery and a very long and hard journey back to the path God has chosen for us remains.
Listen again to verse nine the way I read it the first time and the way the Bible actually reads.
9 I say to God…
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"
and
9 I say to God my Rock,
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"
Did you notice the two words that were different? They are “my Rock.” To we talk to God when we hurt or do we talk to “God my Rock.” In Matthew 7:25, Jesus says only the house that is build upon a foundation made of solid rock can stand when “the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house.”
You see, Psalm 42 says God’s answer for dealing with the very real problems we face every day of our lives involves three things.
The first, according to James Montgomery Boice, is: “The most important thing to be said about the approach to depression taken by the author of this psalm is that he does not give in to depression or self-pity but rather takes himself in hand and wrestles through it. He reminds himself of what he really knows and finds that “no reasons for being cast down are so strong as those for elation and calm hope” (An Expositional Commentary on Psalms: Vol. 2, Psalms 42-106; Baker Books, 1996, p. 370).
Boice goes on to cite Martin Lloyd-Jones who stresses “that talking to ourselves rather than allowing circumstances to talk to us is the very essence of wisdom in this matter. It is a case of the mind speaking to the emotions rather than the emotions dictating to the mind: ‘You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself.”
To defeat depression we must take responsibility for our actions and for what we think. We must be the aggressor, we must approach life from a position of strength rather than weakness. It is difficult to do this when life seems to be an overwhelming flood, but verse 5 gives us the key:
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
The must “will ourselves” we must make a deliberate choice to put our hope in God, to acknowledge and praise Him because no matter how we feel or what our emotions are saying to us the fact is that He is our personal Savior and the Creator God of the universe. How we feel cannot change these truths. We must first acknowledge the validity of these truths and their fundamental place in our lives and then we must ask for the Holy Spirit to give us the strength to act upon the willful and purposeful decision we have already made. The decision is up to us, the power to accomplish what we have decided is up to God.
Day by day, hour by hour, or even moment by moment in our darkest of time, the final step in this process of winning in life is to live our lives upon the truth that God is our God and put our hope and trust in Him. Let me repeat these three steps. 1). Be assertive in life, take the initiative in life’s battle, and challenge the forces that come against us. 2). Deliberately and willfully choose to stand firm in the battle by believing, even against all odds, that God is in control and through the Holy Spirit we have the power we need to stand firm. 3). No matter what happens, no matter what the forces that surround us are—no matter how good or how evil—never waiver in your trust of God. We are not asked to understand; we are asked to stand.