When the day’s been long or hard or annoying or frustrating, what do we do? When we feel like we didn’t do well, aren’t amounting to much and don’t measure up, how do we respond?
Maybe we try distracting ourselves with TV or books or games or food. Or maybe we try boosting our sense of accomplishment through some hobbies, odd jobs or working late into the night.
When the evening comes and we think “what can I do to feel better, more content, less dissatisfied with this day and myself,” how do we answer?
In the Psalms we have the perfect answer. And it starts with a question:
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?
Psalm 43:5
Getting at the Root
Sometimes I know that I react to my feelings without thinking or considering why I’m having them. Where are they coming from? What is the underlying cause? What am I believing that’s making me feel this way?
It would seem the author of this Psalm thought the same thing. At the end of Psalm 42 and 43 the author stops and thinks to himself: what’s going on here? Why are you feeling like this, soul? Why so downcast?
To fight a disease we need to diagnose the cause. To make repairs we need to know what’s broken. And to deal with discontentment, insecurity and “bad” feelings we need to know what’s at the root of it. We need to stop and ask ourselves what the problem is.
I sometimes put hope in my friends to make me feel loved, my family to make me feel wanted, my job to make me feel successful.
What’s going on, soul? Why are you not content? What are you hoping in that’s not coming through for you?
Questioning My Soul
I’ve found this to be such a refreshing practice. And I’ve found the more I stop and consider and ask the Spirit to show me why I’m feeling dissatisfied or restless or without peace the more I see what’s happening; the more I see all the things I’ve been putting some of my hope in.
I start to see how I sometimes put hope in my friends to make me feel loved, my family to make me feel wanted, my job to make me feel successful. I put my hope in food to make me more satisfied, tv and books to feel more adventuresome, sports to feel victorious, social media to feel noticed and the list could go on and on. And over it all I find I’m hoping in myself to build and create and accumulate and retain enough of everything to satisfy me.
Empty Hopes
So, why so downcast? Why are you cast down, O my soul? I am downcast because my hope for peace and contentment and happiness is in things that simply cannot provide it. They are not enough. They are too small, too weak and too temporary. Sooner or later they all fail or reject me or betray me or lose out or run out and die.
And then my soul is cast down. My day, in big and small ways, feels disappointing. I feel discontent, because my hopes have failed or I feel them failing or I fear they may.
Trading Hopes
So, what’s to be done then? There’s only one thing. I need to move my hope from those temporary, fickle and failing things to a much better hope; a real, capable saviour. And in the second half of Psalm 43 that’s precisely what the author does as well:
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 and my God
Psalm 43:5
The author begins by inquiring of his soul. But he doesn’t settle for what its turmoil tells him. Instead he speaks to it. He tells it what’s what. He preaches to his soul. He tells it that wherever its hope has been, move it, and put it in God. He preaches the gospel to himself– that God, not these other hopes, is his salvation.
Preaching to My Soul
Next time I feel downcast, restless or discontent deep in my soul I want to do this. I want to ask my soul what its problem is. And then I want to tell it what the answer is. The gospel is the true, relevant answer to the root of all our fears and insecurities and discontentment. If we haven’t seen how yet, it just means we have more to discover about how awesome Jesus and all he’s done truly is.
When the day’s been hard or frustrating and the evening comes and I think “what can I do to feel better, more content, less dissatisfied with this day and myself,” I want to say “Wait!” Why do I feel discontent and dissatisfied? Because whatever deficiency I think I have Jesus has overcome completely. I want to remember how Jesus is the only real, capable saviour and move all my hopes onto him.
“What the New Testament tells you to do always, in the first instance, is to forget yourself… and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider first what has happened to him, consider first his relationship to sin.
Then when you’ve got that clear, the next step is to say, ‘I am joined to him, and what is true of him is true of me, therefore I deduce this about myself'”– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Jesus in My Place
Jesus loves me. He lived the perfect human life, died for our sins, was raised to never-ending life and placed above every ruler, authority and power.
God has united me, joined me to Jesus and my life is hidden in him (Col 3:3). So, this imperfect, sinful human life you are so focused on tonight, soul, doesn’t define or own me anymore (2Cor 5:21). Instead his perfect, sinless human life is now mine (Gal 2:20). I belong to him and have been clothed with his life(Gal 3:27). So, I am now as righteous, sanctified, redeemed, blameless and holy as Jesus is, because Jesus is (1Cor 1:30).
There is nothing I can do to make myself more accepted or important or loved, and nothing I have done, or neglected to do, can make me any less so (Eph 2:8).
There is nothing I can do to make myself more accepted or important or loved
Jesus is accepted, so I am accepted.
Jesus is pleasing, so I am pleasing.
Jesus belongs, so I belong.
Jesus is not a failure, so I am not a failure.
Jesus’s life has meaning and purpose, so I do as well.
Jesus’s future is secure, so mine is too.
Jesus will never be alone or forgotten, so neither will I.
Nothing can separate him from the love of God, and so nothing can separate me from it either.
Our Only Saviour & Hope
Jesus is the only good saviour. And he is the perfect saviour. He has rescued us from every fear and foe. And so he is the only hope worth having. He is the only thing worth hoping in. He is our all-satisfying, “blessed hope”(Titus 2:13).
What we believe will provide, sustain and satisfy us is what we will put our hope in. And the status and condition of that thing will determine how we feel and respond and live.
So, when your soul next feels downcast ask it what it’s hoping in. Then ask the Holy Spirit to enable you to preach to your soul the hope of Jesus instead.
As we do we find Jesus is always faithful and able and willing, and has already done everything necessary for our past, present and future; for our peace, contentment, satisfaction and joy.
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 and my God
Psalm 43:5
