Waves of Sorrow and Covenant Love

After a few months in Acts, we’ll return for the summer to our series in the Psalms, “God’s Greatest Hits.” Today’s song is a sad song. My hope throughout this series is to learn from the Psalms how to process our emotions with God. If we process our sadness the right way, instead of drifting down a river of sorrows, our sadness will carry us straight to God’s heart.

Today’s Psalm is two separate psalms in our Bibles—Psalms 42 and 43—but we will tackle them together since originally (as you’ll see) they were penned together. In terms of structure, Psalms 42-43 break down into three stanzas, with a refrain capping off each stanza in 42:5, 11, and 43:5. Our approach will be to generally adhere to the flow of these stanzas, with some jumping around because multiple verses and themes repeat each other.

We begin with the complaint in verses 1-3. After a few musical notations in verse 1, we read: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?"

Notice first that the Psalmist thirsts for God like a deer for streams of water, but the only streams he gets are the ones pouring from his eyes. It’s hard to imagine a less satisfying drink than your own tears. This is the Psalmist’s way of saying that God’s absence feels not just inconvenient but cruel—like a child asking for a fish and being handed a snake. Second, notice that the Psalmist and his enemies share the same observation—God is nowhere to be found—but they have different responses. The enemies respond by mocking, but the Psalmist responds by panting for God. The contrast highlights that both saints and sinners will sometimes feel like God is absent. The question is not whether God will feel absent, but rather, when He does—how will we respond? By thirsting for God or writing Him off like the enemies in verse 3?

We learn more about these enemies as the Psalm progresses. Let’s read some verses. Verses 9-10: “I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" Now, 43:1-2: Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, from the deceitful and unjust man deliver me! For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you rejected me? Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

Notice the repetitiveness of the complaint. The Psalm does not ascend steadily from the valley to the mountain; instead, it bobs up and down like a drowning swimmer, gasping for air between waves. Emotions are like that. When I feel overwhelmed, my wife tells me: “Just make it through this wave.” The battle for hope always comes in waves, so don’t be discouraged when it all hits at once. It will. That’s the way this works. Psalms 42-43 portray the battle of the soul, from sadness to assurance, from despondency to hope. Hope and assurance do not just magically appear. We must fight for them. And we must persevere, beyond the initial wave.

So how do we persevere? Several answers arise in this Psalm, but this one might surprise you: complain more. Isn’t that encouraging? Complaining is my spiritual gift. Now you might be thinking, “But the Israelites got in trouble for complaining in the wilderness.” Right, but they didn’t complain like the Psalmists. Remember verse 9: in the same breath that he sings, “God is my rock,” he complains, “Why have you forgotten me?” In 43:2: in the same breath that he sings, “In you I take refuge,” he complains, “Why have you rejected me?” The Psalmist does not complain in such a way that he writes God off like Israel in the wilderness or the enemies of this song. Instead, he complains to God while simultaneously clinging to God. That’s the right way to complain. Complain to God without writing Him off, but instead, by clinging to Him. Practically, this might mean going for a drive and scream-crying to God. It might mean saying in the same breath, “I believe You are good,” and “why have You made me so miserable”? God is not afraid of your extreme, negative emotions. Many of us are though. This is why we bury our negative emotions with food, drink, pleasure, and distraction. Or else we ride them like a raft down the river to nowhere. The Psalms model, instead, that we ride our emotions straight to God’s heart. We view our emotions as a trigger, not for compulsive behavior, but for passionate prayer. We bob for air by complaining to God in a way that also clings to God.

Now let’s move from the complaint of verses 1-3 to the remembrance of verse 4: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.” This tells us something about the setting of the song. He is away from Jerusalem and the temple, longing for corporate worship. What I want you to see here, though, is that “remembrance” is another way of bobbing for air. Our tendency is to remember the bad times and forget the good. The Psalmist inverts that here, and he repeats it in the parallel, verse 6: My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

The land of the Jordan, Mount Hermon, and Mount Mizar speak of regions within the Promised Land. To remember the Promised Land is to remember God fulfilling His promises. How often do you intentionally remember the good things God has done in your life? For me, practically, that’s what Saturdays are for. I spend time each Saturday morning reviewing my week, writing down the good things God did, and celebrating Him for it. It’s how I bob for air between waves.

Another way we bob for air is by “the inner pep talk.” We see this in the refrain of verses 5, 11, and 43:5. It says, “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. We tend to think that only crazy people talk to themselves, but science suggests otherwise. On May 23, 2012, Time Magazine released an article titled, “Talking to Yourself, Not so Crazy.” They cited a review of more than two dozen studies on the subject. For example, elite sprinters who spoke verbal instructions to their bodies—“push” when they needed to accelerate, “heel” when they hit max speed, and “claw” during the endurance phase—performed better than those who didn’t talk to themselves. This same principle applied across many disciplines; it also applies spiritually. It’s why we so often read in the Psalms, “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” “Wait for the Lord, O my soul,” and “Return to the Lord, O my soul.” Why does the Psalmist so often preach to his own soul? Psalm 42:3 and 10 give us a hint: because the voice of the enemy taunts him “all day long.” This Psalmist knows if he doesn’t preach to himself, the enemy’s voice will fill the void. And it’s the same for us. Regardless of whether we have physical enemies, we all have a spiritual enemy, the devil, who “all day long” plants negative thoughts in our minds: “You’re a loser. You’re a reject. You’re a terrible Christian or parent or friend.” Some of us have listened to the devil for so long, we can’t even distinguish his voice from our own. Sometimes, the best way to overcome Satan’s voice is to drown it out with our own. This is all the truer when we aren’t clearly hearing God’s voice. Preach to yourself, “Why are you downcast O my soul, hope in God, for I will yet praise him!” Say these words, gasp for air, and brace for another wave. That’s the way this works.

Now, this brings us to the middle of the song. Just when it couldn’t get worse, we reach verse 7:

“Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.” People misinterpret this to mean that the deepest part of the Psalmist cries out to the deepest part of God, but that’s not what it means. “Deep” is the biblical word for the ocean. Think of Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit of God hovered over the “deep” waters of chaos and turmoil. The Psalmist is imagining a deep reservoir of chaos up above, crashing down into a deep reservoir of chaos down below. “Deep” calling to “deep” is not the sound of prayer but the “roar of your waterfalls”, which correspond to “your breakers” and “your waves” that “have gone over me.” In other words, the Psalmist is drowning in the chaotic flood of suffering that God has sovereignly allowed. He can’t even attempt a prayer, for he is drowning. He’s tried complaining to God, remembering God, and preaching to himself, but his efforts are lost in the roar of churning water. Despite his perseverance, the situation has worsened. In the beginning, he imagined God as a stream of living water; now, God is a flood of deadly water.

This is the low point of the song, but in the very next verse, we reach the high point. Again, waves of strong emotion are this way, so don’t be discouraged by the up-and-down. Let’s read verse 8: “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.” The Psalmist highlights the centrality of verse 8 by the all-caps, L-O-R-D—that is, “Yawheh,” God’s covenant name. God’s covenant name is His personal name, the one most intimately attached to His promise to be Israel’s God. “steadfast love” further emphasizes Yahweh’s covenant, for this is the Hebrew word “hesed,” which means covenant love. Verse 8 balances verse 7, for the same God who permits His breakers to wash over us commands His love to fill every wave. One of my greatest comforts in suffering is the knowledge that whatever God has allowed, He has run it through the filter of covenant love.

If we doubt it for a minute, we can look to Jesus, who embodied God’s hesed on the cross. God had made a promise to Abraham to bless Israel, and through Israel, to bless the world. Instead of blessing the world, though, Israel acted like the world. The law said Israel would be cursed for acting this way, but Jesus came as a son of Abraham to take the curse on Himself. Galatians 3: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us… so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” God’s love is so steadfast that Jesus bore the curse we deserved in order to bless Israel and us. His love does not hinge on our faithfulness, but on His. The Psalmist conveys this realization poetically by replacing the night-and-day tears of verse 3 with the night-and-day hesed of verse 8. Before, the Psalmist could barely breathe; now, he prays and sings of a love that’s even more constant than our pain.

After this high point, another wave sweeps over. The Psalmist sinks beneath the taunt of adversaries in verses 9-10, then he bobs for air by preaching to himself again in verse 11, then the enemies re-enter in verses 1-2. Up-and-down, he rides the wave of emotion until he rises above it one last time. Let’s read verses 3-4: Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

Notice the contrast with the first stanza. The Psalm begins by asking, “When shall I appear before God?” (42:2); it ends by answering, “Then I will go to the altar of God” (43:4). It begins by remembering “glad shouts and songs of praise” in God’s house (42:4); it ends with “God my exceeding joy… I will praise you” (43:4). In the first half of the song, the Psalmist twice remembers his good times from the past (42:4, 6); in the second half of the song, he instead prophesies the good times in the future (43:4). The final line—the refrain—reminds us that even though waves have not stopped rolling, the Psalmist has grasped the life preserver of hope.

Psalms 42-43 remind us that sadness is not the enemy. Our enemy is the enemy. When sorrow carries us like a raft down the river to nowhere, we don’t have to be afraid. Instead, we can turn our emotions into passionate prayers and ride them like a vessel straight to God’s heart.