Psalms 42,43 Talking to your soul

We move into Book II of the Psalms with a short series of songs from the Sons of Korah, the Temple musicians. 42/43 seem to have started life as one song with three stanzas and a common refrain, Why are you so down my soul? Why are you inwardly groaining? Put your hope in God. For I will praise Him yet.

Our poet is a long way from home geopgraphically and spiritually. Rather than joining the crowds in worship at God's house, The Temple, he is stranded in the cold, wet, north of Israel, the land of mountains (Hermon and Mizar) and rivers (Jordan) 42:6. He feels like he is stuck underneath one of the many waterfalls, with wave after wave pouring over him (42:7) He feels forgotten and abandooned by the Lord (42:9, 43:2) and he wats to know why. He feels both soaked by troubles and as dry as a deer in late Summer when everything is parched. (42:1)

We will all go through such times so we need to learn how to respond. Deep in his soul he cries out to his God. God never loves us more than when we handle him with numb fingers.

1/ the writer talks to the Lord (42:9) about his pain and confusion. To add insult to injury his enemies constantly taunt him, Where's your God when you need Him? He believes that God will send his light and truth as a sort of search party to find him and bring him home. (43:3)

2/ He also talks to himself. As Martin Lloyd Jones said in his classic book Spiritual Depression, we need to learn to talk to our souls more than to listen to them. "The Lord will pull me through. I will praise Him again. He will put a smile on my face." (42:12;43:3 literally I will praise Him, the salvation of my face and my God) by the smile of his salvation. (42:5) (literally, I will praise Him for the salvation of his face) We too, by faith, look forward to being face to face with our Saviour and joining the millions of excited, celebrating devtoees of Jesus, the one person totally abandoned by His God and Father so we will never be.