Speaking Hope to Your Soul
‘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 42:7)
Have you ever been homesick? Perhaps you experienced homesickness as a child while attending a camp? Christian believers are very much a pilgrim people who find themselves homesick for heaven. As the writer to the Hebrews reminds us: ‘….here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come’ (Hebrews 13:14). If you have your sights set on your heavenly home, and if you are longing for the day when you will be in the Lord’s immediate presence and see Him face-to-face, then you will know a feeling of spiritual homesickness. If you know the pressures of this world and the opposition of the Lord’s enemies, then you will long for heaven. How should we shepherd our soul through seasons of homesickness? Psalm 42 teaches us some vital lessons.
In Psalm 42, the psalmist expresses a deep sense of homesickness. He longs for Jerusalem, for the temple, for the presence of God– but he is far away from his homeland. He is tearful and downcast (v. 3). He remembers with bittersweet joy the experience of going to the house of the Lord with the Lord’s people (v. 4). But he is not able to do that now. He remembers the Lord from afar – from the land of Jordan and Hermon, from Mount Mizar – territory that is up north and out of reach of Jerusalem (v. 5). He is homesick in every way – socially, geographically, spiritually. The people of the land are unsympathetic to him and his faith. He is in a hostile place. He declares, ‘My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”’ (v. 3) He is facing “the oppression of the enemy” (v. 9) – and he cries out: ‘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?” (v. 10)
Notice how the Psalmist copes with this spiritual homesickness in a faith-filled way by addressing his own soul. He does it twice – in verses 5 and 11 – and he says the same thing both times: ‘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.’ These are words we might imagine a mature believer saying to another believer in distress. But the interesting thing here is that the psalmist sees the need to say it to himself, to his own soul. There is profound, Spirit-inspired wisdom in this act. If we are going to make it through the spiritually hard times – the times of oppression and the times of spiritual homesickness – we need to be those who speak truth to our own soul.
What faith-filled, gospel truth can you speak to your own soul today? Not sure where to start? Perhaps begin by reciting out loud verse 8 throughout the day: “By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me.” It is, for each of us, a matter of spiritual survival to remind ourselves of our hope in God. In this wearisome world, you may yearn for God’s refreshing presence ‘as a deer pants for flowing streams’ (v. 1), Be encouraged that, as you speak God’s truth to your soul, you will find refreshment from the living giving water that will become “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14)