Psalm 42
October 19, 2025 O Lord, as with the writer of this psalm, so with us: inward turmoil, dejection, depression, and grief. If not today, then tomorrow or next week or next year. We feel forgotten by you, distant from you. We long to be closer; sometimes we can’t even muster up that longing.
We remember better days—when our spiritual vitality, our day-by-day relationship with you, our God-centered fellowship with other believers were vigorous and satisfying. Those were times of praise and thanksgiving and vital community, but now it’s isolation and tears. Voices demonic and human taunt us: “Where is your God?” We feel like we have been plunged into the depths of life-threatening waters, submerged under your breakers and waves.
Your breakers and waves. The writer says they are yours. Sometimes, Lord, this plunges us deeper in turmoil: how could you do this to us? But for the psalmist, this reality is a reason to keep trusting.
O Lord, as we share the experience of this writer’s anguish, so may we share his faith, his struggle for faith, his faith interwoven with anguish, the back and forth of faith and turmoil locked in conflict. May we remember you, may we pursue you, from the watery depths may we hold onto your love that you direct by day and the song that you give by night. In the especially hard places of nighttime, may we pray—even sing our prayer—to you, the God of our life.
We take heart, Lord Jesus, that this is a psalm you were familiar with during your earthly life. You experienced its turmoil, especially in the last days and hours of your life, when your soul was sorrowful to the point of death, and you trusted your heavenly Father through it all. Our faith falters, but yours did not. Our faith is peppered with unbelief, but yours was not. Our panting for God dies out, but yours did not. As we seek to grow in faith, we constantly confront our failures. But you never failed. Amid inner turmoil and anguish, amid outward conflict, threats, agony, and death, you kept trusting and obeying your heavenly Father. You knew you would yet praise him, your Savior and your God, on the other side of death.
So we lean into you, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, the one whose perfect faith stands in for our unbelief, whose righteousness stands in for our failures. In union with you, Lord, on the basis of your resurrection victory, may we learn with this psalmist to talk back to our souls, saying “Why, my soul, are you dejected? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him.” Thank you, Lord, for the assurance of praise that lies farther ahead: our resurrection after death, our being with you forever in the new heavens and the new earth. Thank you for the assurance of praise that lies nearer: beyond our present depression, dejection, and turmoil we will once again experience your deliverance and once again praise you, for you are our Savior and our God.
This morning we ask these things not only for ourselves but also for our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in Ukraine, about whom we learned so much last Sunday. They have so much cause to be grief stricken, turmoil stricken, depression stricken. Amid death, injury, and displacement, may their faith hold fast. May they persevere in trusting you. May they put their hope in you and keep anticipating praise yet to come. May they continue to share the good news of Jesus’ victory with their war-torn neighbors.
We pray in the name of our risen Lord and Christ, and all God’s people said, “Amen!”