Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

by Timothy J. Keller

Luther regarded Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God, my God—why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) as “the greatest words in all of Scripture.”104 Luther knew personally about what he called Anfectungen, a word that means the “assaults” that the world, the flesh, and the devil make on human beings through the evils and suffering of life. For Luther “Anfectung is . . . a state of hopelessness and helplessness having strong affinities with the concept of Angst [or dread].”105 But in these words of dereliction from the cross, Luther saw a deep paradox. Christ suffered Godforsakenness in his human nature; he knew Anfectungen in infinite degrees, beyond anything any other human being will ever experience. Here, then, is what the New Testament letter to the Hebrews means when it exhorts us to approach Jesus for mercy and grace “in our time of need” because he is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses . . . having been in every respect tested as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:14–15 NRSV). Indeed, Luther saw that “in Christ, the God-forsaken sinner has a Savior who has taken on himself the full depths of human estrangement from God—and overcome it.”106

The first relevant Christian belief is in a personal, wise, infinite, and therefore inscrutable God who controls the affairs of the world—and that is far more comforting than the belief that our lives are in the hands of fickle fate or random chance. The second crucial tenet is that, in Jesus Christ, God came to earth and suffered with and for us sacrificially—and that is far more comforting than the idea that God is remote and uninvolved. The cross also proves that, despite all the inscrutability, God is for us. The third doctrine is that through faith in Christ’s work on the cross, we can have assurance of our salvation—that is far more comforting than the karmic systems of thought. We are assured that the difficulties of life are not payment for our past sins, since Jesus has paid for them. As Luther taught, suffering is unbearable if you aren’t certain that God is for you and with you. Secularity cannot give you that, and religions that provide salvation through virtue and good works cannot give it, either. The fourth great doctrine is that of the bodily resurrection from the dead for all who believe. This completes the spectrum of our joys and consolations. One of the deepest desires of the human heart is for love without parting. Needless to say, the prospect of the resurrection is far more comforting than the beliefs that death takes you into nothingness or into an impersonal spiritual substance. The resurrection goes beyond the promise of an ethereal, disembodied a...

In short, theism without certainty of salvation or resurrection is far more disillusioning in the midst of pain than is atheism. When suffering, believing in God thinly or in the abstract is worse than not believing in God at all.

The doctor was dumbfounded and turned to the minister, urging him to “talk some reason into them.” Willimon of course knew that the couple needed to be given good instruction as to what lay ahead so that they did not take up their parenting of this new child with naïveté. But, he wrote, the couple was using reasoning, though it was a reasoning foreign to the doctor. In the dominant cultural narrative—reflected in the reasoning of the doctor—“words like ‘suffering’ are unredeemably negative” because “it is important to avoid pain at all costs” since “our lives are [valued] by nothing more significant than our desires.” The couple, however, was thinking about life through the logic of the Christian story, namely the Fall and the redemption of the world through Jesus Christ, and in that story, suffering can be redemptive, a way of serving others, and a way of glorifying God.148

“Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn’t it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes toward the heaven where He sits in silence?” Tarrou nodded. “Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that’s all.” Rieux’s face darkened. “Yes, I know that. But it’s no reason for giving up the struggle.” “No reason, I agree. Only, I now can picture what this plague must mean for you.” “Yes. A never ending defeat.” —Albert Camus, The Plague151

Probably the classic example of the visceral argument in our times comes in Elie Wiesel’s Night.186 He vividly describes how the very first night in the Nazi death camp devastated him. That first night, he wrote, “turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.” He looked at the furnaces turning human beings, including little children, into “wreaths of smoke.” The fires of those furnaces utterly destroyed his faith in God.

For years, Lewis rejected the existence of God because he believed the logical argument from evil against God worked. But eventually, he came to realize that evil and suffering were a bigger problem for him as an atheist than as a believer in God. He concluded that the awareness of moral evil in the world was actually an argument for the existence of God, not against it. Lewis describes his awakening to this point in Mere Christianity,192 but he gives a longer exposition in his essay De Futilitate. Lewis explains that “there is, to be sure, one glaringly obvious ground for denying that any moral purpose at all is operative in the universe: namely, the actual course of events in all its wasteful cruelty and apparent indifference, or hostility, to life.”193 So the existence of cruelty and evil in the world was the reason Lewis could not believe there was a good God, a “moral purpose” operating behind the universe. But then he began to realize that evil in the world was “precisely the ground which we cannot use” to object to God. Why? “Unless we judge this waste and cruelty to be real evils we cannot . . . condemn the universe for exhibiting them. . . . Unless we take our own standard to be something more than ours, to be in fact an objective principle to which we are responding, we cannot regard that standard as valid.”194 Here was the conundrum for Lewis as an atheist. His objection to the existence of God was that he could perceive no moral standard behind the world—the wo...

The other gods were strong, but Thou was weak. They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne. But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds but Thou alone. —Edward Shillito, from “Jesus of the Scars”

The world is too fallen and deeply broken to divide into a neat pattern of good people having good lives and bad people having bad lives. The brokenness of the world is inherited by the entire human race. As Jesus says, the sun shines and the rain falls on both the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45). The individual sufferer is not necessarily receiving a due payment for specific wrongdoings. But on the other hand, while we must never say that every particular instance of suffering is caused by a particular sin, it is fair to say that suffering and death in general is a natural consequence and just judgment of God on our sin. Therefore we cannot protest that the human race, considering our record, deserves a better life than the one we have now.

See what this means? Yes, we do not know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, or why it is so random, but now at least we know what the reason is not. It cannot be that he does not love us. It cannot be that he does not care. He is so committed to our ultimate happiness that he was willing to plunge into the greatest depths of suffering himself. He understands us, he has been there, and he assures us that he has a plan to eventually wipe away every tear. Someone might say, “But that’s only half an answer to the question ‘Why?’” Yes, but it is the half we need. If God actually provided an explanation of all the reasons why he allows things to happen as they do, it would be too much for our finite brains. Think of little children and their relationship to their parents. Three-year-olds cannot understand most of why their parents allow and disallow what they do. But though they aren’t capable of comprehending their parents’ reasons, they are capable of knowing their parents’ love and therefore are capable of trusting them and living securely. That is what they really need. Now, the difference between God and human beings is infinitely greater than the difference between a thirty-year-old parent and a three-year-old child. So we should not expect to be able to grasp all God’s purposes, but through the cross and gospel of Jesus Christ, we can know his love. And that is what we need most.

I will never forget the first night away from our daughters. I was raging, crying out to God, screaming in agony. Then something powerful happened. A calmness and warmth spread through me. I was suddenly aware that God was right there, holding me, raging with me at the injustice, weeping with us, His children. In that moment, I had never felt more protected in all my life.

So what happened to that deep, peaceful awareness of my Father’s presence and protection? It was still in me, grounding me, giving me strength to get through another day. Despite each day’s disappointments, frustrations, and sorrows, I slept soundly each night. Each morning, I thanked God for recharging me. During the day, I frequently wrestled with God. I often brooded when He didn’t “make things right.” I was so weary of waiting for the truth to prevail. There were countless court meetings, petitions, hearings, CPS visits, police procedures, legal proceedings, rumors, expert opinions, off-the-record tips, and massive amounts of paperwork. Most of the time, I accepted the courage God was giving me to handle these daily challenges. Other times, I crumbled under the pressure. Over time, I learned that God didn’t mind how strong or weak I was on any given day. He was the same. This was the true miracle—that my family lived and survived in the fiery furnace with God’s provision, not that God ultimately rescued us from it.

When we were leaving the office, I hugged the doctor who had reported us. Trust me, I did not feel like showing love to that person, but God did. That was the most powerful healing and reconciliation I have ever experienced. God changed me in that moment, more than He had changed me through the entire tribulation. He miraculously changed my perspective—I suddenly saw myself in this flawed woman facing me. How many mistakes have I made in my life? How many people have I hurt, intentionally or unintentionally? How many times have I allowed pride to prevent me from doing the right thing? How, after all, was I different from my accuser?

Albert Camus writes: “In that Christ has suffered, and had suffered voluntarily, suffering was no longer unjust. . . . If everything, without exception, in heaven and earth is doomed to pain and suffering, then a strange form of happiness is possible.

Christ] the god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. . . . The divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death.”

You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

The suffering of Jesus has ended suffering.

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round! . . . Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow-dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in. George Herbert, “Sin”

For God has purposed to defeat evil so exhaustively on the cross that all the ravages of evil will someday be undone and we, despite participating in it so deeply, will be saved. God is accomplishing this not in spite of suffering, agony, and loss but through it—it is through the suffering of God that the suffering of humankind will eventually be overcome and undone.

God could have done all this some other way—without allowing all the misery and grief—the cross assures us that, whatever the unfathomable counsels and purposes behind the course of history, they are motivated by love for us and absolute commitment to our joy and glory. So suffering is at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is not only the way Christ became like and redeemed us, but it is one of the main ways we become like him and experience his redemption. And that means that our suffering, despite its painfulness, is also filled with purpose and usefulness.

So much of Christian faith and practice hinges on the concept of the glory of God. But what is that? The theology books struggle when they try to define it. I believe it is because the glory of God is actually the combined magnitude of all God’s attributes and qualities put together. The glory of God means what can be called his infinite beyondness. He is not a “tame” God, a God at hand. He is not someone you can always figure out, or expect to figure out. This is a God beyond our comprehension, and it is one of the aspects of the biblical God that modern people dislike the most. We are always saying, “I can’t believe in a God who would do this” or “I can’t believe in a God who would judge people.” One of the things that may mean is that we don’t want a glorious God, one beyond our comprehension. The glory of God also means his supreme importance. The Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod, which means “weight”—literally God’s weightiness. Fortunately, we have an English word that has the same lexical range and that functions in the same way—it is the word matter. Matter means “as opposed to the immaterial, something solid, something substantial,” but it can also mean “importance.” And therefore, when the Bible says that God is glorious, it means he should matter, and does matter, more than anything else or anyone else. And if anything matters to you more than God, you are not acknowledging his glory. You are giving glory to something else.

Tolkien replied that at the heart of the plot was the Dark Lord’s effort to magnify and maximize his power by placing so much of it in the ring. He wrote: “The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself.”

Tolkien means something like this: It is one thing to love somebody and get a lot of joy out of the relationship. But if that person breaks up with you and you want to kill yourself, it means you have given that person too much glory, too much weight in your life. You may have said in your heart, “If that person loves me, then I know I am somebody.” But if that person then takes the relationship away, you collapse and melt down because you have ascribed more glory and honor to him or her than to God. If anything matters more to you than God you are placing yourself and your heart into something external. Only if you make God matter the most—which means only if you glorify him and give him the glory—will you have a safe life.

The forgiveness and love shown by the Amish community toward the shooter and his family was the talk of the entire country. The way they handled their suffering had been a powerful testimony to the truth of their faith and to the grace and glory of their God.

It is worth noting that the testimony of the Amish to Christ was so powerful that many observers felt the need to mute it. A made-for-TV film about the incident created a fictional character, Ida Graber, an Amish mother of one of the murdered children. In the movie, she is so filled with doubts and anger at God, and so unable to forgive the gunman, that she almost leaves her faith. Those who were actually involved with the Amish after the shootings countered that, despite the deep grief and pain, there was simply no one in the community who had their faith shaken or who could not forgive.287 The film showed—without aiming to—that the secular filmmakers who lived within the “immanent frame” couldn’t really comprehend an attitude toward God that enabled people to accept mysterious providence and dispense forgiveness without bitterness toward either God or the shooter. Four years after the incident, a group of sociologists published a book about it.288 One of their main conclusions was that our secular culture is not likely to produce people who can handle suffering the way the Amish did. Many pundits and commentators across the country tried to claim the Amish’s startling love as “the best in ‘us,’” ignoring the profoundly and distinctively Christian roots of what they did. The Amish Grace scholars called that out as naïve. They argued that the Amish ability to forgive was based on two things. First, it was grounded in deep reflection and meditation on Christ forgiving his t...

But if Christianity is true—this is already happening. Don’t you see that you are already on camera? There is an unimaginable but real spiritual world out there. You are already on the air. Everything you do is done in front of billions of beings. And God sees it, too. As Joni wrote about her friend Denise, “Angels and demons stood amazed as they watched her uncomplaining and patient spirit rising as a sweet smelling savor to God.”295

No suffering is for nothing.

Mild he lays his glory by; born that men no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give them second birth. Jesus lost all his glory so that we could be clothed in it. He was shut out so we could get access. He was bound, nailed, so that we could be free. He was cast out so we could approach. And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that can really destroy you: that is being cast away from God. He took that so that now all suffering that comes into your life will only make you great. A lump of coal under pressure becomes a diamond. And the suffering of a person in Christ only turns you into somebody gorgeous. Jesus Christ suffered, not so that we would never suffer but so that when we suffer we would be like him. His suffering led to glory. And you can see it in Paul. Paul is happy to be in prison because “my sufferings are for your glory,” he says. He is like Jesus now. Because that is how Jesus did it. And if you know that that glory is coming, you can handle suffering, too.

“Aim at heaven and you get earth ‘thrown in’—aim [only] at earth and you get neither.”

C. S. Lewis’s famous dictum is true, that in prosperity God whispers to us but in adversity he shouts to us. Suffering is indeed a test of our connection to God. It can certainly tempt us to be so angry at God and at life that we have no desire to pray. Yet it also has the resources to greatly deepen our divine friendship. It starts with analysis. When times are good, how do you know if you love God or just love the things he is giving you or doing for you? You don’t, really. In times of health and prosperity, it is easy to think you have a loving relationship to God. You pray and do your religious duties since it is comforting and seems to be paying off. But it is only in suffering that we can hear God “shouting” a set of questions at us: “Were things all right between us as long as I waited on you hand and foot? Did you get into this relationship for me to serve you or for you to serve me? Were you loving me before, or only loving the things I was giving you?” Suffering reveals the impurities or perhaps the falseness of our faith in God. In a sense, it is only in suffering that faith and trust in God can be known to be in God, and therefore it is only in suffering that our love relationship with God can become more and more genuine.

Suffering drives us toward God to pray as we never would otherwise. At first this

See the dynamics at work here. Paul’s sufferings drive him into God and his unfathomable comforts.

The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. The Princess Bride (1987)

A “penny dropped” for him in that conversation. Other help came from his father, who comforted him by pointing out that he shouldn’t expect to feel God’s grace and strength now for the whole ordeal ahead. He was petrified that he would have to face the death of one or more of his immediate family and that it would be more than he could bear. But, his father said, he was not facing it now, and so he shouldn’t expect to feel strong enough now for something that had not yet happened. “God never promised to give you tomorrow’s grace for today. He only promised today’s grace for today, and that’s all you need” (Matt 6:34). Another penny dropped.

I have discovered a new treasure—the gift of pain is the gift of God Himself. In the end, He alone is truly my delight and comfort. I have learned the meaning of Psalm 119:71: “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.”

A famous hymn speaks of Jesus “treading” through the same griefs and troubles that we walk through. Crown Him the Son of God, before the worlds began, And ye who tread where He hath trod, crown Him the Son of Man; Who every grief hath known that wrings the human breast, And takes and bears them for His own, that all in Him may rest.334 As we have observed, one of the main metaphors that the Bible gives us for facing affliction is walking—walking through something difficult, perilous, and potentially fatal. Sometimes it is characterized as walking in darkness. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps 23:4 NIV; cf. Isa 50:10, 59:9; Lam 3:2). Another image is that of passing through deep waters. “I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters” (Ps 69:2; cf. Ps 69:15; 88:17; 124:4; Job 22:11; Ex 15:19). There is also the hint of walking carefully on slippery and dangerous mountain paths (Ps 73:2). What ties all these metaphors together is the insistence that suffering is something that must be walked through.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow; For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie, My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply; The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine. The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

There are many people who think of spiritual growth as something like high diving. They say, “I am going to give my life to the Lord! I am going to change all these terrible habits, and I am really going to transform! Give me another six months, and I am going to be a new man or new woman!” That is not what a walk is. A walk is day in and day out praying; day in and day out Bible and Psalms reading; day in and day out obeying, talking to Christian friends, and going to corporate worship, committing yourself to and fully participating in the life of a church. It is rhythmic, on and on and on. To walk with God is a metaphor that symbolizes slow and steady progress. So walking with God through suffering means that, in general, you will not experience some kind of instant deliverance from your questions, your sorrow, your fears. There can be, as we shall see, times in which you receive a surprising, inexplicable “peace that passes understanding.” There will be days in which some new insight comes to you like a ray of light in a dark room. There will certainly be progress—that is part of the metaphor of walking—but in general it will be slow and steady progress that comes only if you stick to the regular, daily activities of the walking itself. “The path of the righteous is like the [earliest] morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day” (Prov 4:18).

So what are those regular, daily activities? What specific means do we use so that we maintain fellowship with God and grow stronger rather than weaker during our difficult times? Throughout the Bible, we see many different actions and ways that sufferers face their suffering. We are called to walk, to grieve and weep, to trust and pray, to think, thank, and love, and to hope. For the remainder of this book, we will explore each one of these in its own chapter.

Ronald Rittgers’s magisterial book The Reformation of Suffering traces how Luther and the German Reformers sought to recover a more biblical approach to suffering. They believed that the medieval church, with its assumption that patience under suffering could merit salvation, had fallen into a new, paganlike stoicism. Lutherans argued forcefully that Jesus bore all our punishment for sin. Therefore we do not need to earn Christ’s help and attention but can be assured that he is lovingly present with us in our affliction. But, Rittgers argues, the Lutheran church nevertheless seemed to follow the medieval church in one respect—by ignoring the significant biblical witness of “lament” as a valid response to troubles and misery. A great number of the psalms are called “Psalms of Lament.” They are poignant cries of distress and grief. Often the psalmist is complaining about the actions of others, or is even troubled by his own thoughts and actions. But some of the Psalms are expressions of frustration with God himself.344 Psalm 44:23 reads “Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?” and Psalm 89:49 says “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” Of course, the book of Job is filled with cries of lament, as are some of the prophetic utterances of Jeremiah. Jeremiah even likens God to a watercourse that looks permanent but runs dry. “Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?” cries the prophet to the Lord. “You a...

It is perhaps most striking of all to realize that if God had given Joseph the things he was likely asking for in prayer, it would have been terrible for him. And we must realize that it was likely that God essentially said no relentlessly, over and over, to nearly all Joseph’s specific requests for a period of about twenty years. Most people I know would have given up and said, “If God is going to shut the door in my face every time I pray, year in and year out, then I give up.” But if Joseph had given up, everything would have been lost. In the dungeon, Joseph turns to God for help in interpreting the dream. Despite all the years of unanswered prayer, Joseph was still trusting God. The point is this—God was hearing and responding to Joseph’s prayers for deliverance, rescue, and salvation, but not in the ways or forms or times Joseph asked for it. During all this time in which God seemed hidden, Joseph trusted God nonetheless. As we saw, in the dungeon, Joseph immediately turned to God for help to interpret the dream. He had an intact relationship with the Lord—he had not turned away from him. We must do the same thing.

But then, there you are at the cross with the few of his disciples who have the stomach to watch. And you hear people say, “I’ve had it with this God. How could he abandon the best man we have ever seen? I don’t see how God could bring any good out of this.” What would you say? You would likely agree. And yet you are standing there looking at the greatest, most brilliant thing God could ever do for the human race. On the cross, both justice and love are being satisfied—evil, sin, and death are being defeated. You are looking at an absolute beauty, but because you cannot fit it into your own limited understanding, you are in danger of walking away from God. Don’t do it. Do what Jesus did—trust God. Do what Joseph did—trust God even in the dungeon. It takes the entire Bible to help us understand all the reasons that Jesus’ death on the cross was not just a failure and a tragedy but was consummate wisdom. It takes a major part of Genesis to help us understand God’s purposes in Joseph’s tribulations. Sometimes we may wish that God would send us our book—a full explanation! But even though we cannot know all the particular reasons for our crosses, we can look at the cross and know God is working things out. And so you can sing to others: Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy and shall break In blessings on your head.

Though dark be my way, since He is my Guide, ’Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide. . . . By prayer let me wrestle, and He will perform. With Christ in the vessel I smile at the storm. —John Newton, “Begone Unbelief,” Olney Hymns

The first reason is that God is gracious and forgiving. But the crucial thing to notice is this: Through it all, Job never stopped praying. Yes, he complained, but he complained to God. He doubted, but he doubted to God. He screamed and yelled, but he did it in God’s presence. No matter how much in agony he was, he continued to address God. He kept seeking him. And in the end, God said Job triumphed. How wonderful that our God sees the grief and anger and questioning, and is still willing to say “you triumphed”—not because it was all fine, not because Job’s heart and motives were always right, but because Job’s doggedness in seeking the face and presence of God meant that the suffering did not drive him away from God but toward him. And that made all the difference. As John Newton said, if we are not getting much out of going to God in prayer, we will certainly get nothing out of staying away. Now, this is perhaps the single most concrete and practical thing sufferers can learn from the book of Job. The Bible says that God is “near to the brokenhearted” (Ps 34:18). “He upholds all who fall, and lifts up all who are bowed down” (Ps 145:14). Those are universals—God is near and cares about all sufferers. In addition he promises to help groaning Christians with his Spirit (Rom 8:26). And he says to believers in Christ “I will never leave you; I will never forsake you” (Heb 13:5). Jesus says that we are his sheep and “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).

All of this means that even if we cannot feel God in our darkest and most dry times, he is still there. And so there is no more basic way to face suffering than this: Like Job, you must seek him, go to him. Pray even if you are dry. Read the Scriptures even if it is an agony. Eventually, you will sense him again—the darkness won’t last forever. The strength you need for suffering comes in the doing of the responsibilities and duties God requires. Shirk no commands of God. Read, pray, study, fellowship, serve, witness, obey. Do all your duties that you physically can and the God of peace will be with you.

There are other examples of this in the Bible. One of the most famous is Psalm 42, where the psalmist addresses himself. These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet prais...

Psalm 42 is an intense, sustained, and eloquent prayer. He is “pouring out his soul” to God. What does that mean? First, to “pour out your soul” means to get into one’s own heart. It is an ancient and healthier version of what is sometimes now called getting in touch with your feelings. It means to look honestly at your doubts, desires, fears, and hopes. But notice that this is not abstract self-examination but, rather, something he does before God. This man is not over in a corner looking at himself, he is exposing his inner being to God. This is crying, longing, reflecting, remembering—all before God. “Pouring out one’s soul” means also simply calling to God. As we look through the psalm, we see many honest, direct statements of confusion and frustration. But nevertheless he prays—in a sustained, focused way. The other thing to notice is that the psalmist is not merely listening to his heart but also talking to it. He is addressing himself when he says, “O my soul.” This is something all people in the midst of suffering and trials must remember. Yes, we must listen to our hearts. We must...

We may hear our heart say, “It’s hopeless!” but we should argue back. We should say, “Well, that depends on what you were hoping in. Was that the right thing to put so much hope in?” Notice how the psalmist analyzes his own hopes—“Why are you so cast down, O my soul?” Notice that he admonishes himself. “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him.” The psalmist is talking to his heart, telling it to go to God, looking to God. D. M. Lloyd-Jones, in a sermon on this ...