Last week we finished our study through Psalm 42-43 which gives to us the Psalmist’s experience in battling depression. What we tried to do was follow the experience of the Psalmist in a narrative way in order to really enter into his experience and learn how to battle for hope in God during times of despair. Below is that narrative outline of the experience.
You might find it helpful to save this somewhere and pull it out when you start to battle depression. God could use the inspired experience of the Psalmist’s battle for hope to pull you out of your despair back into finding God as the gladness of your rejoicing, that is, your exceeding joy.
Spiritual depression is accompanied by unfulfilled worship desires (42:1-4)
- Spiritually depressed individuals long for God (1-2a)
- Recognizing He is the living God (2b)
- And therefore, they question their lack of currently experiencing God’s presence (2c)
- And sorrow, as unbelievers mockingly add weight to their questions (3)
- So they pour out their sorrow (4a)
- Remembering past worship when they experienced God’s presence (4b)
- Eventually those who turn to the Lord in their depression recognize that persevering, faith-fueled, God-centered, self-exhortation is the remedy for their depression (5)
- This self-exhortation begins by self-consciously questioning their state of soul (5a)
- And climaxes with the self-exhortation to hope in God (5)
- Because they can be confident they will once again know God’s presence in worship
- Because they can be confident that He will deliver them from their current state
Spiritual depression is accompanied by feeling forgotten by God even during faith’s fight (42:6-11)
- Spiritually depressed individuals who have exhorted themselves to hope in God still struggle with despair but now do so consciously before their God (6a)
- And as a consequence they remember God (6b)
- acknowledging God’s involvement with their sorrows, (7)
- growing in confidence that His presence will be known in the future, (8)
- and resolving in the future to ask the questions of despair in the context of trust (9)
- All the while continuing to transparently acknowledging the pain of feeling forgotten (10)
- And continually returning to persevering faith-fueled, God-centered, self-exhortation (11)
- This self-exhortation begins by self-consciously questioning their state of soul (5a)
- And climaxes with the self-exhortation to hope in God (5)
- Because they can be confident they will once again know God’s presence in worship
- Because they can be confident that He will deliver them from their current state
- Because they can be confident that He is their God
Spiritual depression is accompanied by feelings of being rejected by God even during faith’s fight (43:1-5)
- Spiritually depressed individuals who have repeatedly exhorted themselves to hope in God and who have consciously struggled before God, eventually directly petition Him about their circumstances of despair (43:1)
- Because they recognize the strength they so desperately need in their despair comes from God. (43:2a)
- As they do so they directly ask their questions of despair to God Whom they now recognize as their only hope (43:2b)
- And ask for His favor and covenant faithfulness to bring them out of their despair (43:3)
- Which they recognize would result in a restoration of joyful worship of their God (4)
- All the while returning to persevering faith-fueled, God-centered, self-exhortation (5)
- This self-exhortation begins by self-consciously questioning their state of soul (5a)
- And climaxes with the self-exhortation to hope in God (5)
- Because they can be confident they will once again know God’s presence in worship
- Because they can be confident that He will deliver them from their current state
- Because they can be confident that He is their God
