I've only been a lead pastor for three years, but in that time, I've heard more people apologize for crying than in the 32 years prior.
Some people beat themselves up for feeling sad. Recently, an older Christian shared with me the many ways they do this. They said, “I know it’s bad, I should be happier if I have faith in God, right?” They treated their sorrow with gut punches of shame. Some medicate it with distractions. Some do all they can to avoid it. Sadness surprises and embarrasses them.
It shouldn't.
Dejection is not an extraordinary experience reserved only for people in sin. Dejection can also be caused by illness, loneliness, enduring hardship, or mysterious inexplicable (to us not to God) suffering. In other words, ordinary life. Psalm 42-43, written for Israel's corporate worship, reveals the unashamed tears of a dejected believer. Instead of tips for drowning dejection in distractions and a bucket of fried chicken, the Psalmist teaches us to walk with God through sadness and talk our hearts toward hope.
The Psalmist writes from loneliness. “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.” There aren’t many details about his situation but it's clear that for some reason, he isn’t able to fellowship and worship with others. He longs for the joy in God he recalls experiencing in the community of faith.
I thirst for God, the living God.
When can I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while all day long people say to me,
“Where is your God?”
I remember this as I pour out my heart:
how I walked with many,
leading the festive procession to the house of God,
with joyful and thankful shouts. (Psalm 42:2-4 CSB)
His remembrance of this good deepens his longing for God. He then asks himself an honest and crucial question, “Why, my soul, are you so dejected?” (Ps 42:5).
The Psalmist's question is the essence of spiritual sadness. It's an honest and common question. When our grades don't measure up, when we lose our job, or when the diagnosis isn't encouraging, it is ordinary, not exceptional, for sadness to be so smothering that all we can ask is “Why, my soul, are you so dejected?” I struggle to handle such sadness well. If I have a tough day, I tend to distract myself by watching King Kong punch Godzilla.
There is a way distractions can help but when our regular response avoids our dejection we won’t reach the hope of the Psalm. The mere choice to cry out to God is a seed of hope we may never plant if we are constantly numbed to our sadness. That is why we need to talk to ourselves. Gospel conversations lead us to hope in God under the dark clouds of sadness.
In Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, Martyn Lloyd-Jones asks readers, “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?” When our sadness monologues, the volume gets cranked up on our despair. This is why the Psalmist interrupts and speaks to his sadness.
We must not be passive and leave our spiritual sadness exempt from gospel examination. Ian Vaillancourt, in his book Treasuring the Psalms, shows how Psalm 42 helps us do this. This Psalm, he says “offers us a rallying cry against passively letting our minds get overcome with sorrow or regret or hopelessness, and to remember past blessing while we anticipate God’s future work in our lives." These Psalms give us the language and courage to honestly examine our strongest emotions.
Three times in Psalms 42-43, the Psalmist asks “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil?” (42:5, 11; 43:5). He is far from passive and will not leave his inner life unexamined, but neither does he kick himself while he’s down. He ministers to his heart by speaking of hope in God. A hope that he does not feel at the moment, but he knows to be true. “Put your hope in God, for I will still praise/him/my Savior and my God” (Ps 42:5).
The Psalmist brings us with him to hope in God through two turns. An inward turn to talk to yourself and a Godward turn to look away from yourself to the substance of hope.
We examine our lives by looking inward and asking “Why, my soul, are you dejected?” In Psalm 42-43, the sadness is connected to his disconnect from fellowship and the place of worship (Ps 42:3-4). We look in to discern the roots of our dejection.
What should we do if that root is unrepentant sin?
Union with Christ is a rock-solid reality for believers, but unrepentant sin disrupts our communion with God. Therefore, keeping a close watch on our lives is essential because sin is always lurking. Looking in may expose a need for repentance.
A few doors down from Psalm 42 is Psalm 51, a Psalm of repentance. The superscription of Psalm 51 tells us that David wrote it after God exposed his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. The consequences of David’s sin - the death of his unborn child and the looming promise of Absalom's rebellion - hang over the Psalm. Over David's heart, though, hangs something stronger. His sin against God.
He directs repentance to God alone. He pleads with God to be gracious to him as he confesses “Against you - you alone I have sinned and done this evil in your sight” (51:4). This doesn’t mean David never apologized to Bathsheba, but it shows that godly sorrow isn't just sorrow for getting caught, it is a sorrow for sin against God. Every earthbound consequence does not compare to the separation from God because of sin. David looks inward and cries, “Do not banish me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” (51:11).
Even in his sin, David knows the steadfast love of God. It's the only ground he has for any hope of forgiveness (51:1-2). That reality doesn’t soften his sorrow, it deepens it. The more we know someone loves us, the stronger our sadness is when we sin against them. I can quickly get over offending a stranger, but hurting my wife stays with me for a long time. Despite God’s love for him never being in question, David feels the sadness of being torn from God because of his sin. But notice that it is through his sorrow, not around it, that God leads him to repentance and ultimately back to himself. Those “dry spells” in our devotions, when we feel distant from God, may not be an issue of habit. It may be an issue of sin. In repentance, David cries "restore to me the joy of my salvation." Sin hides its ruinous consequences behind an immediate hit of happiness. Repentance, though, is a path to restore joy in God.
When I discover sin is the cause of my dejection, my first instinct is to run, hide and even justify myself. These are as effective consolations as Adam's fig leaves. The gospel, on the other hand, gives a sound and strong consolation: "God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:9). I love the Hymn Come Ye Sinners. This hymn shows us the heart of Christ for sinners.
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready, stands to save you
Full of pity, love and power
I will arise and go to Jesus
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior
Oh, there are ten thousand charms
The first stanza pictures Jesus ready and waiting for us - poor, needy, weak and wounded sinners- not with a scowl to say, "I told you so." But Jesus standing, ready to save. Ready with love and mercy. Ready to embrace repentant sinners with "ten thousand charms." Our salvation is rooted in the freedom of God's love and mercy. Richard Sibbes opens The Bruised Reed with this reminder. "In this we may see the sweet love of God to us, in that he counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service, and in that he will put his only beloved Son to that service." Repentance is the answer to sin-rooted sorrow because, as Sibbes says, "there is more mercy in Christ than sin is us." Jesus never justifies sin, but he justifies and purifies sinners like us. His presence is never safe for our sin, which is why it is the only place of eternal and sweet consolation when we find sin is the cause of our dejection. We experience what Luther called "the friendly heart" of God by running to him in repentance when our sin is exposed.
While Psalm 42-43 is not about repentance, it teaches us a similar lesson to Psalm 51. God meets dejected believers with fatherly love, giving them hope through sadness. If sin or something lile the loneliness of Psalm 42, don't avoid or medicate away the hard questions. Lean in and ask, "Why my soul are you so dejected?" God loves us too much to let us avoid the pains in our hearts. In love, he leads us into a spiritual sadness to wake us up and drives us to ask the hard questions leading us to hope in him.
Looking inward should lead us to look Godward. Taking our eyes off us and asking a pressing question. Why does God allow his people to endure spiritual depression?
What good comes from the feeling of a downcast soul in a person called to be full of the joy of the Lord? If God calls us to joy and fills us with joy, why would he walk us through spiritual sadness?
Looking Godward gives us eyes to see God leading us to hope in him through sadness, even through depression. In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis shows a good example of this. The Screwtape Letters is a story about Wormwood, a young demon and freshly minted tempter who receives letters from his uncle Screwtape about the best way to tempt his “patient” away from God. In one letter Screwtape writes about how dangerous the “troughs” of the Christian life can be to their cause. “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” A Christian who feels like they should give up, who feels forsaken, and yet still obeys and walks with God terrifies Screwtape. The trough of dejection threatens Screwtape’s "patients" to look to God. The last thing Screwtape wants is for his “patient” to be aware of his sadness, feel his sorrow, and ask himself "Why are you so dejected?" because this is God's road leading us to hope in him when sorrow is suffocating.
Everything pressing in on the Psalmist screams despair and yet what comes out of his mouth is hopeful praise. To get there, though, he had to lean in and examine his sadness. To rest in God, he had to look in and look up.
From the start of Psalm 42 to the end of Psalm 43 something changes. It’s not his circumstances that change but his perspective. God brought him to hope through spiritual sadness.
For you are the God of my refuge.
Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about in sorrow
because of the enemy’s oppression?
Send your light and your truth; let them lead me.
Let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to your dwelling place.
Then I will come to the altar of God,
to God, my greatest joy.
I will praise you with the lyre,
God, my God. (Ps 43:2–4).
God allows him to be downcast because through this sadness he would draw near to God and strengthen his hope. His sadness was how he would come to God, his "greatest joy." Through this sadness, God leads him to sing “I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.” He doesn’t get here by magic. He sifts his emotions and asks himself hard questions. Through it all, God leads him to hope.
This doesn’t mean sadness or spiritual depression disappears simply by telling ourselves to snap out of it. Neither does it downplay these times for believers. These are dark clouds, but behind them is a merciful, loving and sovereign God. The Psalmist teaches us to hope in God even when the clouds are darkest. In loneliness, illness, and mysterious hardship you can endure and trust God's goodness. He intends this sadness to draw you nearer to him. There is an assurance of love that follows on the heels of despair. Hope rooted in the eternal character of our covenant God doesn’t teeter on the flimsy ledge of circumstances.
God doesn't lead us into the valley of sadness to punch us in the gut. Nor does he intend for us to avoid our sorrow. Rather, God leads us to hope in him as we honestly feel our sadness, examine it, and lift our eyes to the Lord by preaching the gospel to our dejected souls.