self counseling

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

Life can throw us some very unexpected and disappointing circumstances. It can look tough. Physical illness, a strained relationship, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, or just the stress of a new season of life can all start to seem to us to be impossible situations. And then if a few of these are hitting us at the same time, we may feel as if we can bear no more. Our souls are in turmoil and downcast, in Old Testament terms. In modern parlance: we are depressed.

Our lives have these sort of lows. It is inevitable for two reasons: 1) we live in a broken world that has been cursed because of sin and that broken experience is magnified by all the other broken people around us. 2) We ourselves are very broken and usually don’t own our own level of sinfulness, often choosing to blame circumstances or other people.

But there is a faith-filled self-talk here in this psalm to help us when we struggle in our broken pain. Faith says to the emotionally torn soul, “Why?... Why are you in such distress when God is in control? Believe Him!” And then faith finds confidence in God, in the worship and praise of the Lord of our salvation. He will help. He IS help. He will save us in the difficult days. He IS our salvation. He is where our broken souls should focus to find relief in those difficult, broken, unthinkable, downcast days of suffering.