This week for my studies at Regent, I had to meditate on Psalms 42 and 43. Did you know that the ancient Hebrew scribes usually combined these two into one? I’ve been reading the Bible for forty years, but I never knew that. ¡Cada día se aprende algo! (You learn something every day!) If you haven’t read them recently, check ‘em out again soon. These psalms provide some very great and practical lessons regarding how to respond to adversity and how to successfully get through times of adversity and trial.
The first lesson is just to recognize that God’s people will go through trials and difficulties. Many today teach that if you’re right with God, everything should go smoothly. These psalms clearly disprove that notion. The psalmist who wrote them, whether David or one of the sons of Korah, made it very clear that he was going through great anguish of soul and great difficulty. He was surrounded by ungodly and deceitful people who oppressed him and spoke negative words meant to tear down his faith. This is a picture of the life of a believer in the midst of a world that is hostile to God and His people. Everybody was saying, “Where’s your God now, huh?” The psalmist says tears have been his “meat” or food continually. So it is not abnormal to go through trials or to experience anguish or sadness, or to feel overwhelmed by difficulties at times, even though one is a child of God. To the contrary, 1 Pet. 4:12, a New Testament verse, says we should not think trials and troubles to be a strange thing. No, they’re a very normal part of life in this fallen world!
But a second lesson of these psalms concerns how to successfully go through trials and difficulties. There seem to be at least three important keys here. The first one is to remember. The psalmist thought back to times when he had been joyful in God’s presence, and he seems to have made a conscious effort to think of the good things God had done for him or perhaps promised him. We likewise must make that conscious effort to remember God’s promises in the Word, or any personal experiences we may have had of God speaking to us, or making one of His promises from the Word real and pertinent to us personally. In times of trial we should do what the psalmist did, and remember what God has done for us and how it felt when we first got saved, etc. Remember the goodness of God, and it’ll help you to keep on going when times are tough.
The second key is to look toward the future by faith and focus on the hope we have in Christ. David told himself to hope in God. (Ps. 42:5, 6, 11, and Ps. 43:4 & 5) He said he would yet praise God, because God was his help or Helper and his God. Faith is said to be for the present-tense and hope, something for the future-tense. There is probably some overlap and blurring of the lines between the two. But the point is that we as believers should always have hope. Let’s face it, even in the very worst case scenario, if we were to be tortured and killed for our testimony, we would then immediately “graduate” into the glorious presence of God in eternity, where all will be beautiful and perfect, and all troubles will evaporate forever. That is really what awaits us! So we at least can have hope for eternity. But we usually can have confidence for a closer-range fulfillment of God’s promises as well. He will be with us to strengthen, to guide, and to empower us so that we can be confident that we will be able to make it through whatever may come our way. Whatever our need, whatever our difficulty, we must consciously think of God’s promises and provisions and we should take courage by doing that. We can truly do all things through Christ, who strengthens us. (Phil. 4:13)
The third key has already been mentioned, but it bears repeating. The psalmist talked to himself, and we should too! He spoke to his own soul and asked why he was feeling downcast. He exhorted himself to hope in God and to consider that he would once again be able to praise Him. This was a confident expression to himself that God was going to come through for him. Things were going to work out. God would provide. There would be a future, a dawn after a dark night. In more New Testament terms, and to quote a song from a few years back, “It may feel like Friday night, but Sunday’s on the way!” The application of this psalm is similar to what we read in Eph. 5:19, where we are told to speak to ourselves (one-another, but surely to ourselves as well) in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” This is how we stay filled with the Spirit, and it is the way to overcome and successfully navigate times of adversity and anguish as well. The psalmist used these three keys to overcome tough times in his life, and God had him write them down, so we could use them in our tough times as well. Thanks, Lord, for the lessons of your Word!