GROW - Psalm 42

 After only a couple days I have discovered a flaw in my approach.  I thought I would keep up my blog posts with the chapters I am listening to Jon Courson preach through Daniel.  Well as it turns out, I am already behind on the listening side because I only listen to these sermons while driving and sometimes it takes more than a day or two to get through one chapter.   To make up this difference I decided I would head back to Psalms.  Several years ago before I even started this blog, I had been posting SOAP posts over on my other blog. I had completed the first section or book of Psalms, so I will start back with the GROW method at Psalm 42.

I also found my old NLT Study Bible that I had been using way back then, so I will be going back to that translation for these studies. Note that I have had this Bible since the late 90's so it will not be the same edition as the link. 

Go to God in Prayer

Read Psalm 42

Observations

The first thing to note is that this is the start of a new section of Psalms.  Book 2 of Psalms is from Psalm 42 to Psalm 72.  According to the notes in my study Bible these 30 Psalms "can help us retain a sense of wonder in our worship". Wonder in our worship!  What a beautiful concept.  If you are not sensing wonder during your worship, then dig deeper and GROW along with me through these Psalms.

The next thing to note is that when we think of Psalms we think of them being written by David.  While he did write the majority of them, he did not write them all.  Psalms 42-49 were written by the descendants of Korah who were Levites that served as choir leaders and temple musicians.

I have heard multiple times from many preachers and Bible teachers that whenever God repeats something that it is important and we should pay close attention to it.  In this Psalm, the middle verse, verse 5,  and the last verse, verse 11 are repeated word for word with the tiny exception of verse 5 that spills into verse 6.  But this is a minor detail in my opinion because God didn't give us the verse and chapters, those were put in much later.

Psalm 42:5 and Psalm 42:11

Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and my God!

The first two lines of this verse speak so clearly of depression which can be so very debilitating and soul crushing.  But there is hope to get out from the darkness of depression - turn your focus to God.  There is medical treatment for depression,  and I fully believe that God gave us the knowledge to create medical treatments and they can be helpful.  But they won't be helpful if we also don't change our attitude along with it.  

For me the key words in these verses are "I will praise him again"  How do we praise Him?  There are many ways to praise - that is a study all on it's own, but the simplest way to praise is through worship music.  When you are worshiping you are moving your focus away from yourself and to where it belongs. 

One of the worship songs that came on while I was writing this post was "I Surrender All" which perfectly illustrates this point. What do you need to surrender to your savior?  Everything!  Surrender everything until you are no longer asking the questions "Why am I discouraged?" or "Why is my heart so sad?"

Write the lessons learned

When you are depressed you are focused on yourself.  Get out of your pity party and get your focus on God.  Put your hope in Him by starting to praise Him.  Start with listening to some Worship music. Really listen to the lyrics and focus on what they are saying.