In Psalm 42, the psalmist is extremely distressed. “My tears have been my food day and night” (v. 3). “I go mourning,” he says, and he describes his misery as if it were “a breaking of my bones” (vv. 9, 10). That’s intense pain…the opposite of joy. Three times he says his soul is “cast down,” or depressed (vv. 5, 6, 11).

Why is he so low? He has lost public worship (v. 4). He’s surrounded by atheistic naysayers, doubters of the covenant. “They continually say to me ‘where is your God?’” (v. 3, 10). Part of him fears the naysayers are right, because he feels that God has forgotten him (v. 9). That must be why he’s weeping. Nothing pierces the heart of believers more than their own doubt. To be taken away from the godly, placed among the ungodly, and to find your own heart agreeing with them! That’s difficult.

The psalmist is really suffering, and although most of us will not experience the exact same problems he faced (thankfully) we can still learn from him here.

The psalmist’s response to his trouble is repeated twice, in Psalm 42:5, 11. Instead of panic, despair, or relying on some human strategy, he finds his solution in God and “takes himself in hand,” as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it in his book Spiritual Depression. The psalmist tells himself: “you must respond in faith.”

"Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him

For the help of His countenance." (v. 5)

Don’t miss the significance of this self-talk. It encourages us to conform our inner emotional world to objective reality, not the other way around. Our minds create interpretations, and we are dominated by our own perceptions and feelings. As long as we wrangle our limited range of facts into a hastily constructed narrative, our self-talk will unsettle us, and we will be "cast down.” Autonomy is a sure path to depression. We need to anchor ourselves to something that is real. Taking yourself in hand, as the psalmist does here, means abolishing your bent to lean on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5-6). In a world where people instinctively trust their inner mind and feelings, to the point at which they judge others without real evidence and even override their own reason by appealing to the “truth” of their feelings, the psalmist’s response is revolutionary. He acknowledges the intensity of his feelings (“My tears…day and night”), but insists that his feelings be led by his theology, not vice versa.

How did the psalmist take himself in hand?

Psalm 42 answers this question in a few ways. He prayed (v. 9). He earnestly desired God like a thirsty deer craves water from a stream (v. 1). That means he was sold out to God as his answer, so much so that he compares his desire to “thirst,” a visceral response to a real, physical need. The psalm then dwells on what he thought about God. If God is the answer to misery, if He’s the way to snatch joy out of gloom, then the psalmist’s thoughts about Him are crucial and have much to teach us. Here are five takeaways:

1. God is present no matter where he finds himself

“I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon” (v. 6). Hermon was a long way from the temple. “I’m far from the temple where I used to rejoice, but I’m going to remember you; you are Lord of all the earth, and you never change. Wherever I am, God, you are there and are the same. Though I am cast out, you are with me, an ever present help in trouble.” God is omnipresent with all people, but He is only omnipresent-to-bless His children.

2. His troubles come from God

“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me” (7). This picturesque illustration says, “The troubles I’m experiencing are like waves that keep crashing over me, tumbling me about, threatening to drown me.” “Deep calls to deep” means that one wave calls out to another. It’s like someone saying “one down, next one up!” He is speaking of the repetitive nature of the “waves” that “have gone over me.” Troubles feel like repeated blows when they come one after another, and it wears you down.

The waves are God’s—“Your waves.” God is the bringer of his troubles. Hardships are providentially given by God. Someone might wonder, how is this supposed to be comforting? It might seem more comforting to remove God from horrible trials because then you don’t have to feel as though the one who loves you is also tormenting you. But how could a non-sovereign god be comforting? If God is not the one doing it, then someone else is, and therefore that someone else has more control than God does. Ultimately, there’s no comfort in a god who is not sovereign over all, including our trouble. The psalmist shows us this here in Psalm 42—the waves that call out to each other are God’s waves. Once you accept this you can ask the right questions, “does God have a practical reason for allowing suffering” (development of endurance, see James 1:2-4)? And “what plan of God could justify His allowing hardship” (our conformity to Christ, see Rom. 8:28-29)?

3. God cares for him daily.

“The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me” (8). Side by side with the previous verse about God’s waves, verse 8 is equivalent to Romans 8:28. Though my trials are difficult and sometimes miserable, the objective reality of God’s loyalty to His covenant leads me to joy and prayer to God, who is my very life. That is, God is the one who prospers, sustains, preserves, and cares for me, body and soul, through life and into eternity. God brings blessings along with stretchings.

God “will command His lovingkindness.” That is a strong way of describing God’s commitment to loving His people. And it is a strong expression of faith in that commitment. Having peace in the pummeling waves of life always depends on faith, on bold conceptions of God, and strong faith to seize those conceptions and feed upon them. Here we are asked to believe that God’s own commanding authority is behind the exercise of His love to us. There is no way we’re not getting loved.

The psalmist’s faith leads him to sing at night, when others would be licking their wounds and worrying about the future. He is like Paul and Silas singing in prison after their beatings. The psalmist is bold, almost defiant. His faith is so strong that the truth about God holds more weight than his surroundings.

4. God is open to hearing his darker thoughts

“I will say to God my Rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’” (9). The assurance of steadfast love leads him to sing in the night but also to frankness about his feelings, yet he never loses reverence to God nor ceases to love Him. Your Christian faith should open things up between you and God, not close them down, but frankness should never lead to animosity, despair, or dark brooding over events.

Do you think Christian living is about ignoring hard things and putting on a front of always being happy? God forbid. Being a Christian means overcoming the sorrow of circumstances and coming into a place of joy by faith in God. It’s battle, not sanctimonious theater. The psalmist snatched joy out of darkness by grounding his soul on God’s promises, but that process involved telling God about the darkness. He didn’t pretend his sorrows didn’t exist; he told God about them, freely and in faith. We shouldn’t wallow in darkness, but we should tell God about it on the way to dispelling it with His light. Though God knows the extent of our suffering already, He wants to hear our hearts’s cry.

5. God will renew His tokens of love

“I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance” (11). The psalmist doesn’t merely think, “God will help me again,” but he epitomizes God as the Help. God helps because in the covenant of grace He is Help. We have this same hope, for God gives more grace (James 4:6), grace on top of grace in Christ (John 1:16). There is a fulness of love in God; the psalmist has fixed his eye upon this rich, divine generosity. God is not a miser with his kindness; He loves to be kind. Therefore, the reasons for joy far outweigh the reasons for depression. We must urge the reasons upon ourselves. The basis for joy in dark places is inwardly substantiating God’s power and promise. God’s love in Christ is given to His children forever. God has good reasons for our troubles. The trials will not last forever. God is promoting our best interest (and his!) in the suffering, and God will renew tokens of love in which we can rejoice. Faith and hope remember God’s everlasting covenant and rest in it.

Psychologists say that human beings are constantly profiling each other, looking for various favorable or unfavorable indicators. That may be surprising, but it appears to be true; we do it. There are undoubtedly all sorts of wrong ways to do it, but also some ways that are natural and normal. When you approach someone at work or at church, you quickly size them up, looking for any sign that might tell you if you’re welcome at the moment. We look at facial expressions, posture, and body language. If signs are unfavorable, we don’t stick around.

We cannot go up to Christ and see his kind facial expressions, like Peter, and James, and John did. But neither could the psalmist. He had what we have, the Word of God telling us of Christ our Savior. The most important thing for each of us is to see God as He is postured in the covenant of grace. We must know that God loves us and will keep loving us, despite our problems. When you think about approaching God, do indicators seem favorable to you? Does God seem welcoming, or does He seem forbidding? This is why the gospel is so important, for how can we feel accepted by God when our own consciences tell us we deserve to be rejected? But Christ appeased the wrath of God against sinners, and if God has granted faith and repentance to us, we can know that His death deals with all of our sins. Even more, we can know that Christ’s own righteousness is imputed to our account. In Christ “we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him” (Eph. 3:12). And on that basis we too can expect God to always be renewing His tokens of love.

Psalm 42 has a crucial message for an age that lends too much reality-defining weight to our inner, emotional reactions. Speaking to oneself about God, preaching to oneself, is the secret to orienting one’s unruly emotions to absolute truth. It’s the secret to patiently enduring trials too. Our impatience is often what gets us into trouble. We protest in our trials, thrash around trying to get free, kick against the goads, and we end up hurting ourselves more than helping.

A Puritan named John Barlow once spoke of a bird that had somehow gotten momentarily locked in a room. The bird lost its mind in fear. It beat itself against the walls and doors in a frantic and useless attempt to get out. When someone opened the door a few moments later, it was bruised and battered by its own panic and efforts. If it could have tempered its fear, it could have patiently waited until the door was open for it to go into freedom again without harm. But it didn’t, and its reaction hurt it far more than its momentary hardship (see John Barlow, in C. H. Spurgeon Treasury of David, vol. 1, part 2, p. 283).

The psalmist was in terrible hardship, and he was weeping in distress. But he challenged his depressed self, grounded his soul on his God, and set an example for the outcast of how to gain lasting hope. The way to wait patiently on God is to exercise faith in the love of God in Christ, who wisely uses trials and renews tokens of love to bless and delight His children. When we believe this, and remember it, and insist on it, we can patiently and even joyfully wait for the door of the room to open, for our kind God will certainly open it.