Discouraged, Not Defeated
Psalm 42
Psalm 42:1–11 (NLT)
1 As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?
3 Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?”
4 My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!
5 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and
6 my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you— even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar.
7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
8 But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.
9 “O God my rock,” I cry, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief, oppressed by my enemies?”
10 Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?”
11 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!
1. Bring your questions to God
Psalm 42:9 (NLT)
“O God my rock,” I cry, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief, oppressed by my enemies?”
2. Anchor Yourself in God’s love
Psalm 42:8a (NLT)
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me,
Psalm 42:7 (ESV)
All your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
3. Sing - especially at night
Psalm 42:8 (NLT)
But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.
Worship does what discouragement hates: it puts truth in your mouth.
4. Preach to your soul
Psalm 42:5 (NLT)
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior.
Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. “Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.”
—David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, 20–21
Listen, self: If God is for you, who can be against you? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you, how will he not also with him graciously give you all things? Who shall bring any charge against you as God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who can condemn me?
Christ Jesus is the one who died— more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for you. Who shall separate you from the love of Christ? No one! Put your hope in God!
5. Worship with God’s people
Psalm 42:4b (NLT)
I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!
Discouragement isolates
6. Thirst for God Himself
Psalm 42:1–2 (NLT)
1 As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?
