Why are you cast down, oh my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him, my salvation, and my God.
– Psalm 42:5
Sometimes we just need to preach to ourselves. That’s at least part of the point of Psalm 42:5. And the same verse in Psalm 42:11. And the same verse in Psalm 43:5. This is the Psalmist speaking to himself saying, “Why are you cast down, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?”
Psalm 42:5 reminds us to preach to ourselves amidst affliction.
In a way that we can all identify with, days or seasons, sometimes long seasons when we are in turmoil, in trial, when we feel cast down, what some have called dark nights of the soul or just hard days that have us down where joy is a struggle, where hope and faith is a fight and the Psalmist can identify with us. Again, one of the things we love about the Bible, it doesn’t present this rosy, perfect, easy picture of life in this world.
It deals with the hard, raw, challenging realities of this world, including the days when followers of God, worshipers of God feel cast down and feel the effects of turmoil and in those moments, we need to do what the Psalmist is doing right here. We need to preach to ourselves. We need to tell ourselves what we know is true, that we can hope in God. Tell yourself hope in God. This is the Psalmist speaking to himself in a way that we need to speak to our own selves. Hope in God and praise him. He is our salvation and our God. Remember who he is. He is your God. I love this picture, my God, the God who created the world, the God who calls the stars by name. He’s not just God. He’s my God. He knows me.
Psalm 42:5 reminds us of the hope we have in Jesus.
God loves me so much that he has saved me from my sins so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on a cross for me, so much that before the foundation of the world, before mountains were ever placed on the land or seas poured forth between them, before any of that, God predestined to adopt me as his child, to bring me into his family. He set his sights on me. He loves me so I can hope in him. I can hope in him.
We need that reminder when we are downcast. I hope that’s a reminder for you today and I just want to encourage you to tell it to yourself all day long and the next day, the next day, and the next day. God, we praise you for Psalm 42:5 and 11 and Psalm 43:5.
We praise you for this picture of someone hurting and struggling and being reminded that in the middle of the hurt, in the middle of the struggle, that he has hope, that we have hope in you, that you are our God and you are our Savior and you’re our Deliverer, which means whatever we’re walking through, you will ultimately deliver us from. We praise you for that promise, for your deliverance from sin and your deliverance from suffering ultimately in the world.
This verse helps us encourage others with this truth.
So God, we hope in you today. We say that together in our hearts and our lives, amidst our circumstances, amidst downcast souls. We hope in you and God, we pray that you would give us sensitivity to opportunities we have today to encourage others with this truth. God, help us as we interact with people around us to be sensitive to those who may be cast down or in turmoil in any way and help us just to speak encouraging words of hope into their lives. God, help us to be messengers of this hope. Help us to say this to ourselves and to others.
God, help us to tell this to other brothers and sisters in Christ. And, God, help us to tell this to people who don’t know you. God, we pray you would help us to point others in the world to hope in you.
Prayer for the Azerbaijani People
And, God, we pray, especially today for people who’ve never heard of this hope that is found in you. Jesus, we pray for the Azerbaijani people, 9 million Azerbaijani men, women, and children. Muslims who don’t know the truth about Jesus… Who died on the cross for their sins to be their Savior… Who rose from the dead as Lord over all. God, we pray that the hope, the resurrection, hope of Jesus would spread among Azerbaijanis. Please, oh God, may it be so. We pray all this according to your Word, which we love in Psalm 42 and 43 in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
