Where's Your Hope When Your Suffering Psalm 42 -43 (Day 10)

For this lent season, I am doing a forty-day study in the Psalms looking for aspects of the atonement that will end around Easter. My hope is to generate a newfound awe of what Christ did on the cross.

Psalm 42:1-3

[42:1] As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

[2] My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? [3] My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”

Psalm 42:5-6

[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 [6] and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

I wrote a 6 part blog series on Psalm 42 and 43 called the redemptive aspects of depression. The whole point of the blog series was to teach us how to suffer well in the midst of pain and sorrow. Suffering is a part of our Christian walk; God doesn't call us out of suffering he calls us to it.  The New Testament is littered with promises that the world is going to mistreat you if you put on Christ but at the same time God promises He is with us in the midst of our most excruciating moments of life.

I believe the reason why God has called us to suffer well is so that we exercise a need for Him; we exercise faith in His promises. Can you imagine being satisfied with the presence of the living God in the midst of your most excruciating moments in your life? I believe this is where God is most glorified; when we can find Him sufficient when our environment is insufficient. We see Jesus do this in the garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew 26:38-39

[38] Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” [39] And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

           

Yes, Jesus was asking for another way out but in the midst of that same sentence He says, “Not my will, but Your will be done”. Jesus gives us this picture of how times can be unbearable but looking to God for His will rather than our own will is where we glorify God. I think our will in the midst of suffering is not suffering!

We see the Psalmist say in 42 and 43 four different times “why are you cast down O my soul; Hope in God” the hope that the Bible constantly speaks of means “expectation” not wishful thinking. So when we hope in God we are really saying we expect from God. In Colossians 1:27 when Paul says” Christ in us; the hope of glory” he is really saying “Christ in us the expectation of glory”.  God loves when we expect from Him (or hope), because that means we believe in him; we believe in His promises; we believe that God would give us what we need in that moment of suffering. That's what the cross has given us… a higher expectation of God in our suffering.