Yet I Will...

I am currently in a series in youth group that is all about current "hot topics" and how the Psalms can help us navigate through them. As I was preparing this week's message I couldn't help but think that more than a group of teenagers need to hear it. So many struggle with this week's focus and the church hasn't always gotten it right, to be honest. It's time to change that and help people find a real source of hope and change perceptions.

The truth of the matter is that we have been created with emotions. They are a part of who we are, each one of us. God created us as emotional beings and expects us to use our emotions, but properly. Even Jesus got emotional! Just look at John 11.

Jesus set the example for us many times documented in scripture for how to use our emotions the right way, how to be, in essence, good stewards with our feelings.

To be emotional is not wrong or bad! Praise God because I would be in SO much trouble if it were! But we do have to be careful to use our emotions through the appropriate lens/filter of Jesus.

There is another man who used his emotions, although not all time proper, for us to see and learn from. He wrote many of the Psalms. King David was a man who made mistakes, big loppers, and yet he was still called a man after God's own heart. Why? Because he was real, raw, repentant and vulnerable.

Psalm 42, The Passion Translation, has me undone.

I don't own any of The Passion Translation options, however they are available in the Bible App and Bible Gateway. I had to print it off so I cold mark it up! I know you can add notes in the app but there is just something about writing and underlining and circling and well, you get the idea.

Many, let's be real and say most, Christians will experience a kind of spiritual darkness at some point in their lives. Sort of a “dark night of the soul” is how I have seen it described. David, the psalmist, expresses such deep feelings here, feelings that he has somehow lost the presence of God, and longs to experience it again (vv. 1-2), crying openly and grieving to the point that people question his relationship with God (v. 3). Can you even imagine?

What David really was is vulnerable. He was willing to wear his feelings on his sleeves so to speak. He wasn’t worried or afraid of how others would view him. He knew that his ability to be the King came directly from The KING of KINGS and that God could handle his raw emotions. When he was broken, lost, grieving, tormented…he took those feelings to God, the One who could help him sort it all out and figure out how it all fits together. He was real and honest with God and others about what he was going through.

David was very aware of his spiritual depression, "Here I am depressed and downcast." (v6). He did not wallow in self-pity or fear but he chose to turn his eyes to God. He knew that praising God was the solution, praise for who God is based on his Word, the history of his proven character, not necessarily based on our emotional state or if we feel like it, but a commanding of our souls to “keep hoping and waiting on God, your Savior. For no matter what, I will still sing with praise, for living before his face is my saving grace!”

Spiritual depression has a solution and a movement through a process of trusting God more.

I want to clarify something here. It is not always going to be like this for all people. Some people face more than a spiritual depression and have an imbalance of chemicals in their brains that produces depression that requires medical assistance. Not that God cannot cure or rid the mind of this problem but for some it is more than just continuing to hope and wait. It is ok to not be ok but it is not ok to stay that way.God is amazingly wonderful and I believe has given us doctors and medicine for a reason and if you need it, take it!There is no shame. I mean, if your leg was broken, you would likely seek God’s help and pray. You would also go to the doctor and get a cast. Our brains, as a physical part of our body, should sometimes be treated with physical care, too.

“As the psalm proceeds we see that the phrase ‘Yet I will...’ (verses 5 and 11; Psalm 43:5) is not a simple prediction of change that could possibly come but an active exercise. When we are discouraged, it's easy to get caught up listening to the fearful speculations of our hearts. ‘What if this happens?’ ‘Maybe it’s because of that!’ But here, instead, David is not merely listening to his troubled heart but addressing it, taking his soul in hand, saying, ‘So I speak over my heartbroken soul, “Take courage!’ he reminds his heart of the loving things God has done. He also tells his heart that God is working within the troubles—the waves sweeping over him are ‘your’ waves (verse 7).

I have heard Christians say otherwise but self-talk is CRUCIAL! You have to talk to yourself and remind yourself of God’s promises, the times He has come through before and what you’re asking of Him.

HE DOESN’T MIND!

There is a “no matter what” condition of the heart at play here that says regardless of my life’s situation or what my eyes see I WILL remember God. I WILL declare His promises over my life. I WILL sing and praise. I WILL pray.

In other words, I WILL not walk away from God.

I love verse 9. I tend to feel David uses a bit of sarcasm in his rhetorical question of God, “I will say to God, “You are my mountain of strength; how could you forget me?”

Go ahead! Tell yourself how important you are to God! He knows it! Do what you have to do to get that message through to your brain and your heart.

HOW COULD GOD FORGET YOU!?!?!

HE CAN’T! HE WON’T!

Trust in God and His unfailing promises and love to you.

Trust that if you are still breathing and your heart is still beating that He is not done with you.

Trust that God will give you all you need to accomplish the plans and purposes He has for your life.

Trust that He holds you and will never let you go, even if you can’t feel Him.