If you’re familiar with the classic novel, The Neverending Story—you’re probably more familiar with the cheesy movie they made out of it in the ‘80s. The hero, Atreyu, is mounting his white steed, Artax, to set out on their journey to save the kingdom of Fantasia. Atreyu is warned that he will have to cross the swamp of sadness. The swamp of sadness, aptly named, is a deadly swamp that symbolically represents pure sorrow and misery and is located early on in his journey through Fantasia.

And he’s warned as you cross through the bleak mud of the swamp of sadness, one thing you must not do is give in to the sadness or you will begin to sink in the swamp, and it will swallow you in sadness. And so they set out through this swamp of quicksand, and Atreyu is diligent to fight the sadness, to fight against it as he makes his way through.

But unexpectedly his beautiful white horse and best friend, Artax, is the one who gives in to the sadness; and as his horse begins to sink in the quicksand, in the swamp of sadness, Atreyu is crying out, “Artax, no! Don’t give in to the sadness.” And in this horribly long, drawn-out scene in the movie where Atreyu is pressing his face against the head of his horse as the horse is neck-deep in the quicksand makes the movie feel more like a psychological horror movie than a child’s movie.

It’s a great picture of human sadness and how easily it can often swallow us, that sinking feeling of darkness and depression. There’s times in life when that darkness seems like it just surrounds you. It feels like all around your soul is giving way. We can be overwhelmed by worries, fighting emotions—emotions you’re not even sure what to do with—having thoughts we know we shouldn’t be having but can’t seem to stop them, feeling this thick weight of darkness upon the soul.

Well, the man in Psalm 42 is struggling with that very thing. Struggling to feel what he knows is true, and he’s pleading with God, crying, begging for relief from this darkness of the soul. As you work your way through the Psalm, you find he can’t sleep at night. I mean he’s frustrated and discouraged. He’s depressed. He’s longing to be in a place where he feels deeper intimacy with God that he has once felt, and he just can’t seem to get there.

What I love about this Psalm is that it’s a small victory in the midst of his depression. It’s not written from a perspective of someone who’s perfectly overcome depression and then looking back on their bout with it saying, here’s how I got out of the darkness. It’s written actually in the midst of the battle. And the Psalm ends, and he’s still fighting the battle in the last verse. He hasn’t won the war yet.

Many of us have experienced this. Your mind knows what’s right, but all you’ve got in your soul is tears. Have you been there? Have you been in the place where you’re saying, I just don’t know what the Lord’s doing here. I can’t understand. Well, this Psalm’s going to help all of us this morning as we look at this man’s battle through the darkness.

If you look at the superscription in Psalm 42, it tells us about the Psalm. Many people don’t know that the superscription to the Psalms is actually part of the original inspired text of Scripture, so it deserves our attention. It says, “To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.” So it’s for the choirmaster. It’s meant to be sung.

This song is actually comprised much like we would think of a contemporary song, right? As you read through, it’s verse, chorus, verse, chorus. You’ve got the first verse in Psalm 42, verses 1 through 4, then the first chorus in verse 5. Another four verses are the second verse of the song, and verse 11 actually repeats exactly what’s in verse 5. So you’ve got the chorus in verses 5 and 11 with four verses of verse.

If that wasn’t confusing for you, I don’t know what would be. Trying to delineate between the verse of the Psalm and the verse of the song.

Well, it appears to be written by the Sons of Korah. That’s a group of priests that you can read about in 2 Chronicles, and it says it’s a Maskil. Maskil is a Hebrew word that comes from the verb that means to make someone wise, and so this Psalm is meant to be sung. And as it’s sung (like Colossians 3:16 tells us, we teach one another with songs and hymns and spiritual songs), it’s designed to make us wise, to give us instruction, to give you wisdom for living.

In particular, Psalm 42 teaches us about how to walk by faith through darkness, through spiritual depression. Now, this isn’t just a sermon I should say for those struggling with depression. It’d be easy for some of you to check out and say, well, I’ve never struggled with depression, so I have no idea what this has to do with me. I’m checking out right now and I’m going to think about something else. I’ve been there. I get it.

But I’d just encourage you to stay tuned in because, as one commentator says, the happiest may soon be plunged into the deepest distress. So prepare yourself now. Prepare during times of peace for the times of war, my friend. But also this is helpful for everyone in this room even if from now until the day you die you never struggle with a single thought of depression. You need to hear Psalm 32 because we as believers are called to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). And that means you need to be equipped to help the people of our church who are battling depression. You do. You do.

Paul told the Christians in Rome that they were competent to counsel one another. Do you feel competent to counsel someone battling depression in our church? That’s what Psalm 42 is in the Bible for, to help us with that very thing. And so as we look at the first verse of the song, in verses one through three of the Psalm, verse one says:

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
   so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

We make this all cute—as the deer pants for water. We needlepoint stitch it, and we hang it on the wall. We put it on a tee-shirt with some hipster antlers around it. You Google “as the deer pants for water,” and guess what you get. You get images, pictures, of a deer with the words of this Psalm, right? As the deer pants for water. And guess where the deer is standing. Near what? [congregation answers: water] Yeah, guess what the problem with that is. That’s not the picture in this verse, right? Deer standing by water don’t say, I’m dying of thirst here because there’s water right there.

The picture in this verse is of this dehydrated animal who’s dying of thirst, panting for water, thirsty. That feeling when your mouth is all dried up. You’re like, I just have got to have some water right now. And this deer is not finding water anywhere and wanting it desperately. This verse is an agonizing verse, and that’s where the author of this song is emotionally. Saying in the same way, my soul is dehydrated. I’m dying here. I’m panting.

And the repetition of the phrase here just shows the intensity of his emotions. He could have just said it once. As the deer pants for water, my soul pants for God. He said,

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
   so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

God. God. God. God. He’s got a single-track mind here like a thirsty person looking for water. He’s got a single-track mind. His soul is panting, thirsting, yearning for God.

I love the plea here because, notice, this guy’s in the midst of some serious darkness. He’s not saying, I want out of this trial, God. He’s saying, I want you, God, in the midst of this trial. It’s okay to pray that—I want out of this trial. Please, God, please alleviate this darkness. It’s okay to pray that. But he’s praying, I want God in the midst of this darkness more than I want to get out of this darkness.

He refers to God fourteen times in this Psalm and the word soul—his soul—he refers to six times. His obsession in the midst of this dehydrated state is not with his health. It’s not with his depression. It’s not with his recovery. It’s not with his emotional plight. His obsession is with his God and with his soul because he knows if he gets that right, everything else in life will fall into place even if it doesn’t feel like it does. He wants God more than he wants relief, and that’s good because he might not get relief in this life, but he will get God.

He says, verse 3, “My tears have been my food day and night.” Not only is he crying, but it seems like he may also be so depressed he can’t even eat. Some of you have been there. You say I’m just soaking in darkness right now, and I can’t even bring myself to eat. I’ve just lost my appetite. Or at least every time he thinks about eating he starts crying. He says, my tears have been my food. The only thing I’m eating is my tears, day and night.

This is why I love the Psalms. Otherwise we might be tempted to think that being a Christian means you never have doubts, you never struggle, you’re never sad, you never experience any darkness, you never get discouraged, right? I’m just a dancing rainbow of floating optimism. [Laughter] We have to be careful because we can portray it that way sometimes, can’t we? It’s easier.

But the Psalms offer us a full range of human emotions and what it looks like to walk through this darkness by faith. It’s a good reminder because even the strongest believers can suffer extreme discouragement and depression at times. Read the pages of church history.

As if the weight of this sadness isn’t bad enough, he’s also got this marvelous group of people in his life who don’t believe in God who are taunting him. Doesn’t it feel that way sometimes? Just when things couldn’t get any worse, they get worse. He says,

My tears have been my food 
   day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
   “Where is your God?”

I mean he’s obviously got some calamity in his life, some visual calamity, some awful situation because they’re saying this. Right? Unbelievers don’t say this to Christians when everything’s going smoothly. Right? When you win the lottery, they’re not like, oh, yeah, where’s your God now? It’s when you’re going through pain and heartache and sadness that unbelievers start to chime in. Yeah, see I told you so. Where’s your God for you now?

They say it when your spouse dies, maybe not verbally, but you feel it. You just know they’re thinking it. When your family member gets diagnosed with some terminal illness. When you lose your job. When you total your car. Yeah, where’s your God now?

And he says, they say it all the day long, which is probably an exaggeration. Right? It kind of shows how he’s feeling. They just won’t stop saying it. He’s maybe even just kind of hearing their taunt echoing in his head, right? Further underscoring his own doubts. He’s like, yeah, thanks. I was already kinda feeling that way.

We’ve all had these moments, too, when in the midst of a trial we think, man, what would my unbelieving brother say about this? Man, what would my non-Christian co-workers say about this? Moments when you kind of feel like, Lord, you’re not being a very good testimony right now. You can hear their taunts and it only further presses into your own doubts.

We start to see him make some progress here in the mental battle. In verse 4, he kind of starts to turn the corner. In verse 4 he says, “These things I remember.” That’s a precious phrase right there. “These things I remember.” Notice now he switches to active mental process. No longer are his emotions washing over him as he kind of passively gets raked over the coals of sadness. Now, it’s like he kind of hits the red button and engages his mental faculties.

At ladies’ Bible study last week I taught the ladies in 1 Peter 1; and in verse 13 we talked about how after Peter spends his introduction talking about the gospel and the future realities that are going to be brought to us at the return of Christ, the very first thing he instructs the believers in 1 Peter, he says, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Right?

Preparing your minds. Being sober-minded. Setting your hope. His first concern is what they’re doing with their minds. And here the Psalmist kind of engages. Verse 4, he says:

These things I remember, 
   as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng 
   and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise, 
   a multitude keeping festival.

He begins to kind of pull this thing out of the nosedive he’s been in by calling to mind memories of the spiritual high of worshiping with God’s people. You ever feel that? Sometimes you feel closer to God. Sometimes I just feel closer to God. When I’m standing here on the front row and all of your voices are shouting to the Lord. Then when I’m driving in my car and I’ve had a tough week and it’s raining, some guy cuts me off, right? You feel different. Maybe you shouldn’t. God’s not further away from you, but it’s easy to feel like he’s not as close.

And here the Psalmist calls to mind that spiritual high of worshiping with God’s people. It’s almost like he’s saying, God feels distant to me right now, but it hasn’t always been that way. I remember times singing in the church when the voices of everyone around me filled the room and God was there with us.

A lot could be said here about the value of being with God’s people for the person struggling with darkness of the soul. A lot could be said for the value of the fellowship that happens in the body of Christ, the relationships that we’re called to have, the way we’re called to bear one another’s burdens.

But the big lesson here is what he’s beginning to do with his mind. A large percentage of how you feel is a result of what you have been thinking about. Test this. Next time you’re feeling sad or depressed like this, discouraged or anxious, just kind of hit the button. Time out.

What have I been thinking about? Chances are your mind has been going in circles on something. Something that’s consuming you. Something that’s discouraging you. And you just keep kind of running through the track over and over and over, and as you do you are sinking in the swamp of sadness.

This is why there’s so many passages in Scripture that call this to our attention, like Colossians 3:2, right? Set your mind on what? Things above, not on the things of this earth. When you find yourself in a battle against the darkness, take a cue from the Psalmist: Don’t let your emotions wash over you as you passively get raked over the coals of sadness. Push the red button. Engage your mental faculties. Say to yourself, hang on, these things I remember, and begin to call to mind the times in your life when you knew God was there with you. The spiritual highs. The great moments of wonder and awe. Right?

For me, I can just remember like, God, I remember that day, it was 2004 or 2005, driving down Highway 105 in Houston, Texas. And I remember the way the clouds looked in the sky, and I remember I was on my way to church just feeling like God’s in the car with me. This is a good day! The Lord is on high! But not every day in life feels that way. That’s why God’s given us the gift of memories like that, that we can use them as a tool in our arsenal to fight.

Now verse 5, he gets to the chorus of the song, right? Verse 5 and verse 11 you can just draw a box around those and you can see really quickly they’re exactly the same. That’s the chorus. Verse 5, this is really the climax of his battle here, too. He begins to talk to his own self now. Verse 5:

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my salvation and my God.

It’s like he says, hey, self, sit down. Look at me. Listen up, punk. I got something to say to you. He just starts flat-out preaching to himself, and there’s a lot we can learn from what he’s doing here. Notice he’s asking a great question, too. Why? Why are you cast down? Why are you in turmoil? Why?

These questions are really designed to challenge himself toward self-examination, towards this introspection. And he begins to command himself. He doesn’t answer the question, right? He answers himself: Hope in God. And notice the connection. Why are you downcast? Hope in God. The implication—you’re downcast because you haven’t been hoping in God. You’ve been hoping in something else.

So often, not always, but oftentimes the reason we are downcast is very likely because we’re hoping in something other than God to satisfy us. Why are you downcast? Because you’re hoping in something that can’t live up to your hopes. And when your idol didn’t come through for you, your emotional state goes with it.

So often our depression, our darkness and sadness stems from hoping in something other than God; and we need to ask ourselves in the midst of that some thoughtful, introspective questions, have some honest moments of truth-telling with ourselves. And even if that’s not the case, the answer is, hope in God.

Hope in God; for I will again praise him, my salvation and my God. Don’t miss the connection here either. After the taunting in verse 3—where is your God?—it’s no coincidence that he says my God. Hope in God. My God. That’s right, he’s my God. There’s a tenacity and a determination here.

When you walk by faith, it doesn’t mean you don’t have dark times, but it does mean that even the darkest night has a star of hope. When you find yourself in dark and difficult times, I would challenge you flip to Psalm 42. Start preaching to yourself the truth.

You’re familiar with the classic Martin Lloyd Jones quote about this. It’s worth repeating. He says, “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?” He says, “Instead of muttering in this depressed and unhappy way, remind yourself of God, who God is and what God has done and what God has pledged himself to do.”

Lloyd Jones says that the Psalmist here in Psalm 42, his soul has been depressing him, crushing him, so he stands up and says, “Self, listen for a moment. I will speak to you.” When you find yourself in dark, difficult times, you need to gather this kind of mental tenacity and start preaching truths to yourself.

Learning to control our thoughts is one of the most important battles in the Christian life. One of the most important battles that we can learn to fight because so much of how we feel is based on how we live and how we think. So much of how we live is based on how we think. So much flows out of, stems out of what we’ve been filling our minds with, what we’ve been meditating on, what we’ve been thinking about.

Read through Jesus’ teaching in the gospels. He’s constantly pointing people to what they’re thinking about, what’s happening in their hearts, not just their behavior.

So again, verse 5 then is the chorus to this song and it’s going to repeat in verse 11. I won’t preach you the same thing twice, although the Psalmist might want me to do that. But there is something that we’re going to need to see when we get there.

Now in verse 6, the second verse of the song begins, verse 6:

My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar

Now, this is real life, right? It’d be really easy to kind of end verse 5 like, you just preach to yourself truth, and the sun is going to start shining, and everything’s going to be fine, and you’re going to feel better tomorrow, and take two of these and call me in the morning. That’s not what happens. He’s fighting and fighting and controlling his thoughts and preaching to himself and remembering things that God has done in his life.

And then verse 6, his soul is still cast down. He says my soul is cast down within me. He’s still in this. It’s interesting, the Hebrew verb here is reflexive, which means it’s actually my soul casts itself down within me. You can picture his soul, it’s like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he throws himself on the floor, so his soul is casting itself down within him.

He’s not done fighting this thing. Verse 6: “My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember …” Right back to the same tactic again. “I remember you” [God] from the land of Jordan and of Herman, from Mount Mizar.” I remember you. He lists these three geographical locations and the point is simply just to say that he’s not where he wants to be right now, which is in Jerusalem with God’s people. He’s not there. He’s somewhere else. He’s on the outskirts of the kingdom.

But here he’s remembering again, actively choosing to set his thoughts on good things that God has done in his life, actively choosing to set his thoughts on God. I remember you, Lord. Rather than passively getting bullied by his emotions. Memories are a powerful tool in the fight and he’s still fighting it.

Listen to how he describes how he feels. Verse 7:

Deep calls to deep
   at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.

That’s intense. Deep calls to deep. It’s like one large body of deep water is calling out to another large body of deep water in a conspiracy to attack him together. Let’s drowned him. Let’s get him. And at the same time the waterfall is roaring down upon him. Breakers and waves are slamming into him all at once. He’s describing how this feels. It feels like he’s drowning.

Some of you could burst into tears at that description thinking, yeah, I’ve felt that. I feel that way now. You know, many commentators believe that the language here is mimicking the flood waters in Genesis 6 as though he feels like he’s outside the ark drowning in the flood. He felt this. I just feel like I’m drowning, like I can’t catch my breath. My head’s under water. It’s just relentless. When it’s not the flood waters, it’s the waves; and when it’s not the waves, it’s the waterfall coming down on me. And nobody seems to understand how I feel.

You ever felt that way? You’re not alone. You’re not alone, friend. You’re in good company here with the Psalmist under the attack of deep, overwhelming waters. Don’t believe the lie of Satan that you are the only one. You’re the only one struggling with this, and you can’t talk to anybody because they’re all going to think you’re crazy. You’re thinking about what? You’re having what kind of thoughts?

What kind of Christian are you? I’m a Psalm 42 kind of Christian. I’m fighting this battle, not always winning, but I’m fighting. This is why God put Psalm 42 and many other passages in the Bible so you would see that sometimes this is what a faithful life looks like. It looks like feeling like your drowning, overwhelmed by a flood of darkness and fighting to stay in it.

But also remember someone doesn’t need to understand what you’re going through to walk with you through it, to help you. That, too, is why God put Psalm 42 in the Bible, so that all of us can be equipped to help one another. We don’t have to perfectly understand one another’s struggles to come alongside one another and help.

But did you notice something else here in verse 7? Did you catch it? Let me read it again. “Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.” The Psalmist recognizes here in the depths that these depths which are attacking him and overwhelming him are not doing so out of control of their own will. These are God’s breakers. These are God’s waves. This is God’s waterfall. The depths in which you feel you’re drowning are God’s depths, serving God’s purposes.

You know what he’s doing here? He’s preaching Romans 8:28 kind of truths to himself. God causes all things, even these waves that are drowning me, to work together for good. I don’t see it, but I believe it. The Psalmist knows his suffering is not meaningless. It’s deeply meaningful because, if nothing else, it’s driving him to say with yearning of a thirst-ravished animal, my soul is longing for more of God. I want more of him in the midst of this. I need him desperately. That in and of itself is a grace.

That’s why Spurgeon said, “I’ve learned to kiss the waves that throw me against the Rock of Ages.” That’s just what the Psalmist is doing here. There are little victories all throughout this battle. Even in the midst of the darkness, there’s always little victories that you can see.

Here’s another one in verse 8:

By day the Lord [Yahweh] commands his steadfast love,
   and at night his song is with me, 
   a prayer to the God of my life.

“Commands” is a word of authority. God is authoritative over everything and is loving. He commands his steadfast love. God’s still on his throne in the midst of this. He’s still a God who loves his people. Day and night he’s in control of everything. He says at night his song is with me.

Isn’t it true that some of the darkest moments happen in the middle of the night? You don’t need to struggle with depression a day in your life to know that. When everyone else is asleep your mind is the only one awake with you. Your feelings of loneliness are accompanied by the actuality of loneliness. Your mind is tired which makes it that much easier to give in to the temptation. You can just sink in the sadness. We’ve all heard it said nothing good happens after midnight. Never is that more true than inside your head.

Let me give you some words of advice from the Psalmist here. Don’t trust your own voice after bedtime. Don’t trust your own voice after bedtime; instead, do what the Psalmist does. Sing and pray. He says at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. You can hear him. He’s clinging to God in the night. He’s singing and praying when he can’t sleep.

All right, looks like it’s going to be a long night. Time to start singing and praying. It’s like your family comes out at 1:00 a.m. and you’re in the kitchen, “When peace like a river …” Mom, are you okay? You’ve experienced this though, right? There’s nothing like a good worship album to help you set your mind on things above.

Did I just say album? Everyone under 24 has no idea what I’m talking about all of a sudden. There’s nothing like a good worship Spotify playlist to help you set your mind on things above when you can’t sleep. I would just say—day or night, right? If you feel the darkness creeping in on your soul, let it be an automatic cue to you—whoop, time to put on some good music. Get out your Chris Tomlin or your Philip Webb.

You have one benefit that the Psalmist didn’t have—headphones. So if it’s 1:00 a.m., you don’t have to wake everybody else up singing “Peace Like a River” in the kitchen. All right, it’s 1:00 a.m., go grab your headphones. Put in your Chris Tomlin. Put in your Philip Webb. Worship Jesus. Sing at the top of your lungs, quietly in your heart while everyone else is sleeping.

He’s not just listening to music. He’s not just singing to the Lord. He’s also praying. A prayer to the God of my life. Listen to the honesty of his prayer in verse 9. Look at it there.

I say to God, my rock: 
   “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
   because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,

[That’s the word for murderer, as though murder is in my bones.]

   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,

[Here it is again.]

   “Where is your God?”

Man, those thoughts come back to you at night, don’t they? It’s interesting because after saying, I say to God my rock, he says, why have you forgotten me? You feel the disconnect there, right? Like there’s like this dissonance between the two. He says some things that don’t exactly sound right. Right? That’s not theologically accurate, Psalmist. God doesn’t forget anything.

When he says here in verse 9, God, why have you forgotten me, you know we might be tempted to correct his theology. Don’t you know the Father will never forget his own? When he’s talking about his tears in verse 3, we might think, you need to rejoice in the Lord always. Thank you, that’s very helpful. And again, I say rejoice.

John Piper has really helped me greatly with this. I’d recommend John Piper and the Psalms to you. He’s helped me with this because depressed people, hurting people, they say things that are not meant to be theologically precise statements. They’re just hurting out loud. We need to learn that when it’s our loved ones saying things that don’t seem to line up because they’re hurting, we need to learn to comfort them, not correct them.

The Psalmist knows what is true. I mean this is the same guy that is preaching to himself, hope in God, self. The same guy who said these are God’s breakers and God’s waves. He knows. He’s not like theologically ignorant.

In fact, Job’s friends did this to him. They tried to correct the theological precision of his words in the midst of his suffering. Job rebukes them in Job 6:26. Fantastic verse. He says, “Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind.” In other words, people say things when they’re suffering, when they’re depressed that they do not mean. Those are words for the wind. Those are words for the wind. Let it go. When the wind blows, their silly statement said in the midst of pain, it’ll blow away and what will be left is their true biblical convictions that God is sovereign. Good.

So be patient with hurting people, right? When someone’s suffering physically, emotionally, spiritually, that’s not the time for you to give them a theology lesson. That’s the time for you to weep with those who weep. We preach God’s sovereignty over all of our trials now so that when you’re suffering later, we sit down and cry with you.

Finally, the Psalmist comes back to the chorus of the song in verse 11, and he repeats,

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?

That word turmoil there, it’s the word for like a loud clamor. His soul is inside him like ughhhhhhhh!

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
   my salvation and my God.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that he says this again and again. And, if you look at Psalm 43, again. Many people think that Psalm 43 is actually an additional verse to Psalm 42 because it’s exactly the same structure. Four more verses of verse and then the exact same chorus again. It’s a good lesson for us. It just keeps going. Just keep fighting the battle, right? It’s not a coincidence that he’s saying this again.

He’s asking himself the same questions, why are you cast down? Why are you in turmoil again? He’s reminding himself of the same truths again. He’s preaching to himself again. He’s telling himself where true hope is found again. Because this kind of battle is not a quick—boom, jump up, preach to yourself, remember a few things—all right, better, feeling happy again. I’m a happy unicorn of floating, colorful happiness again.

No, he gets to the end of this Psalm, and he’s just still fighting. It’s a good reminder that the fight against this darkness of the soul isn’t always a brief one. Sometimes it is. For some it will be a season. For some it will be a long, sunless Alaskan winter. For some it will be a lifelong war. Often it can feel like we’re losing.

But like the Psalmist, even in the midst of the war we preach truth to ourselves. We thirst for God more than relief. We remember his past graces in life. We sing our way through heartache. We pour out our hearts to God. We remember that we’re not alone in this. We trust in the purposes of God that we may not see, and then we do it all over again because that’s what it looks like to walk by faith. And there can be in the midst of even a lifelong war against this darkness, there can be many hard-won victories. Many hard-won victorious battles in the midst of the war.

Father, that would be our prayer. We look at Psalm 42, we look at passages like this in Scripture, and thank you, Father, that you have not left us without a witness to the fact that this is a part of the spectrum of human emotions. The darkness does not have to overwhelm us. Sadness does not need to suck us in. We don’t have to give in to the bullying of our own emotions, Lord. We can fight.

Thank you, Lord, for the encouragement that we’re not alone in this battle. Not only the Psalmist but many people in the body of Christ, many people in church history struggled with this kind of darkness of the soul. Oh, Lord, I just pray for all of us, for anyone here struggling with an overwhelming sadness in their lives. God, I pray that you would draw near to them, let them hope deeply in you. Father, let them trust that the waves and the breakers are yours, that you send them in love.

For all of us, help us to be the kind of place where hurting people are welcome. Let us not pretend that life is all bubbles and hearts, God. Let us be real Christians who live real lives that we might be able to welcome people struggling like this, even in our midst this morning, that they would feel welcomed here, not outcasts. Help us to be patient with people who are hurting, Lord.

Continue to use passages like this to strengthen us, to help us, to grow us, to make us more like your Son. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.