Psalms 42–45

Scripture Reading: Psalm 42:1-11, Psalm 43:1-5, Psalm 44:1-26, Psalm 45:1-17

April 2023. I was serving on the pastoral team of a church plant in Madison, Tennessee. One Sunday morning, I was driving to church—praying, thinking through the morning, doing what I always did. But in the middle of that routine prayer, something unexpected came out of my mouth.

I said, “Lord, I don’t want you to take away my disease (I suffer from Lyme disease) if it means I lose what I’ve been experiencing of you.”

As soon as I said it, I started to weep. Because in that moment, I realized something had shifted in me. My heart had turned from “God, take away my pain” to “God, enter my pain with me.”

That shift captures the heart of Psalm 42. This psalm gives voice to the lived experience of the Christian life, where our cries of “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil?” meet the quiet, steady reminder to “Put your hope in God” (Psalm 42:5). Yet as much as we want to lift our souls by sheer willpower, this is not a self-help command. The psalmist isn’t telling us to muster positivity or force belief; he’s modeling what it sounds like to pray through the pain, to bring our weary hearts into the presence of God.

When the psalm says, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God” (v.1), we begin to see what that looks like. The image of the panting deer is not decorative, it’s diagnostic. It shows us that our deepest hope in suffering is not escape but encounter. The deer’s exhaustion mirrors our own: After running for miles with no rest, lungs gasping, strength fading, she finally stops and searches for water. That is what the downcast soul does. It longs, aches, and pants for the only stream that can restore it: God Himself.

The presence of God does not erase our pain but meets us in it. When our tears have become our food day and night, when everything around us shouts, “Where is your God?” (v.3), the weary soul finds the living water of God. There, hope is refreshed again, echoing the psalmist’s words: “The Lord will send his faithful love by day; his song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life” (v.8). God can take the tears that once starved our souls and turn them into a song, harmonizing the melody of His steadfast love with our cries of pain.

I think back to that drive often. I still live with pain. I still pray for healing. But I no longer pray as one searching for escape but for more of an encounter with the Redeemer of my pain. I’ve learned that the tears that once drowned my prayers have become part of the song God is writing in me. And even when my soul feels downcast, I can say with quiet confidence: “Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God” (v. 11).

Written by Ryne Brewer