Conclusion of our study (Psalms 42-43)

The psalmist says another important part of the formula to come out of depression, in these verses:

I remember these things and pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go over with the multitude and walk them to the house of God, With a voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude celebrating a festival.(Psalm 42:4)

Send out Your light and Your truth, they shall lead me;
They shall bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And I will praise You on the lyre, God, my God. (Psalm 43:3-4)

As we conclude our study dealing with depression, and with how the psalmist fought the roller coaster of emotion that he found himself in, let's notice that he said he wanted to seek God with the people of God.

Time and again in these verses, the psalmist seems to say that he is isolated in his depression, and that is often the case. It's hard to get out of the chair when you are weighed down with depressive thoughts. It seems an impossibility to get dressed and go somewhere. And going to where there are other people worshiping and singing seems beyond imagination.

But the psalmist is correct: the place of joy where the need of his soul would be met would be in worship alongside God's people. When we are depressed, we often want to avoid people. We may especially avoid gathering with other believers. But it's actually what would do us so much good.

The noted Welsh pastor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, authored many books, and one of them was Spiritual Depression. I have read excerpts from it and found it to be very helpful. I post a few words here in the hope that they may be helpful to someone reading here:

Have you not 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 start 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 was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself....

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’--what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’--instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God”.

Psychology today may encourage patients to "stop worrying," to "pull ourselves together," but it seems to me that the subconscious will continue to work on these issues and cause even more problems in the future. Perhaps the real antidote for our mental distress is found in the words of Paul:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

It is then, after talking with our Father, that we may go against our feelings. We may gather strength from Him. We can tell ourselves it is good; it's even necessary for us to gather with other believers and seek Him. There is something uplifting about corporate worship that cannot be experienced in our solitude.

I hope that there has been something in our study these past few weeks that will be of help to all of us. Is God our exceeding joy, as the psalmist said in Psalm 43:4? Our need is not to "feel happy." Our need is not only relief from our pain. Our need is God! We must do as the psalmist did, to conquer his depression - and we must not give up when it seems we must follow the recipe again and again, just as he did. If we rouse ourselves to seek God as our only hope and help, He will comfort us. He will give us His peace. He is faithful to His promises.

We will come out of this. We will praise Him again for His grace and mercy!