“When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse everything I know of you…” (Psalms 42)
This one little sentence holds so much truth and meaning for me. I love the Psalms
because they mirror such honest dialogue to God, deep laments, and provide
normalization to the deep questions our soul often asks. Most of these questions occur
out of pain, trial, and suffering. I see it in the countless faces I have interacted with over
the years. I have felt it in my own life through seasons of trials. I have been privileged to
enter the sacred space of grief with many, facing the anguish and anger of unanswered
life questions. Often there are no answers to give back, only solace in the pages of
scripture through people who have also been there. Who have faced the same questions. The same pain, the same doubts and/or fears. And what I love about God is He provides the answers if we examine the rich words of wisdom left to us even through the painful questioning.
Though we are fallible people ever changing, with circumstances ever changing, there is one who does not change. Yet God doesn’t abandon us just because we have questions, doubts, or fears. The Psalms invites us to lay it out honestly at the feet of God. The One who does not change. The One who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. (Hebrews 13:8) The One who is, who has been, who will forever be faithful, dependable, constant, and true. This faithful God invites us to bring our uncertainty and suffering to Him. To do that we have to rehearse a proven script. Not our own fallible script, but God’s. Most times when our soul is “in the dumps”, our internal scripts or inner dialogue can change quickly to negative
thinking and distorted thinking. Very quickly we can spiral into forgetting God is even
there or feeling His distance. We emotionally reason our spiritual relationship “I feel God
is distant, so it must be true”.
The Psalmist writes, “when”, my soul is in the dumps, I need to rehearse the past faithfulness of God. It is a proven script and truth that echoes throughout the Psalms and other books of the Bible because it increases our hope in Him right in the midst of the valley. It exercises our spirits. When I rehearse the faithfulness of God, I am exercising hope, I am renewing my mind, I am pausing from my pain, and challenging my own soul. “Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?” is a question the Psalmist asks. Why? Because flipping your script to God’s script and reciting who HE is and how He has been faithful helps me to put on the lens and perspective I may need in the present. If I remember and recite the places, moments,
times, seasons I witnessed His faithfulness, it makes me aware that He is the same, and I can count on Him again. If I can shift my focus and worship on WHO He is, I begin to see God bigger than my circumstances. I am aware there are places difficult to even find words in the valley, but I also know His word and truth do not return empty.
If you have little to stand on right now in your own relationship with God, just open His word and see the faithful hand of God in those who came before us. It is left for you to see. To stand on, to recite, to remember. My hope is that through rehearsing the faithfulness of God, you begin to see hope increasing. Hope not in your circumstances, but in the character of God and in His promises. And because He is the same, you have hope for tomorrow too!
In Grace and Love,
Jennifer