A Road Map for Life | Remembering Our Redeemer Sample

STILL STRUGGLING (Psalm 43)

There are seasons in life when you do everything you know to do, everything you have been told to do, and you are still struggling - maybe you are there right now.

Let me encourage you: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful” (I Corinthians 10:13).

In Psalm 43, we find a psalmist who is still struggling. We saw that the writer of Psalm 42 was having a hard time — thirsty for God, troubled by his own emotions — and eventually found some victory. Many people believe Psalm 43 is a postscript to its predecessor, like a footnote or the continuation of the story. It is only five verses long but continues the same theme, the same tone and even some of the same words. Again, we do not know exactly who wrote them, but we know that person was having a hard time.

Here is Psalm 43 in its entirety:

“Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”

Notice that final verse. It is the same wording that was found twice in Psalm 42, verses 5 and 11. Obviously, this is a man who was still struggling.

Maybe you have been going through something and you thought you would be over it by now, but it is still wearing you down. You wonder, “What is wrong with me?” It may be that it is not your fault, nor anyone else's fault. God may be working in you and for you.

Consider that fact that we are still gaining wisdom from Psalm 43 and it grew out of a crisis in the psalmist’s life.

| Sometimes the greatest life grows out of moments of death, and the greatest hope comes in the midst of despair |

We see in these verses that he is pouring out his soul to God. That is something we can always go, no matter how bad things seem to be. When no one else is around, you can talk to God about it. Here are some things you can include in that prayer.

- Make sure you are thoroughly right with God (verse 1). The psalmist began by asking God to judge him, and he could only do that if he knew he was right with the Lord. You do not want God to judge you unless sin has been confessed and forsaken, so there is nothing between you and Him.

- Rehearse who God is (verse 2). Here we see the reference to the source of our strength. There is a tendency to get our eyes on ourselves and other people, but they should be focused solely on Him.

- Give your questions to Him (verse 2). If you are a parent, you know all too well that your children love to ask "why?" Sometimes that is the case with God’s children. It is all right to ask, as long as you are asking the One who always has the answers and who loves you unconditionally. Take your confusion and uncertainty to the Lord, and pour out your questions to Him.

- Ask God to lead you (verse 3). If you do this, you had better be prepared to follow Him. Do not pray unless you are willing to obey. The psalmist was ready to trust God with his next step.

- Seek to enter His presence (verse 4). We notice that he did want God just to bring him out of his circumstances. Sometimes we are looking only for an escape. God’s goal is not to simply get us out of trouble, but into His presence. Everything looks different from the throne room. When you are seated in heavenly places, with your affections set on things above, all of earth looks different. Seek to commune with God, to get as close to Him as you possibly can.

- Continue into praise (verse 4). We see a divine cycle here. Prayer should always lead to praise, which ultimately leads to more prayer. We rejoice in what God has done and is doing, then we ask Him for more.

- Get your eyes on God (verse 5). As in the previous psalm, he ends by looking first at himself. In your own soul you have emotion, intellect, and will. Sometimes, quite frankly, our intellect gets cloudy. Our reasoning gets confused and our emotions get overwhelmed. Our will takes us to a place where we get stubborn.

Let me challenge you today to get your eyes off your own soul and back on your Redeemer.

In Ps. 42:5 the psalmist gave praise for “the help of his countenance.” Here in verse 5 we see a reference to God as “the health of my countenance.” I love this. His countenance will help your countenance.

You do not have to put on a fake smile today. Just get a glimpse of His face and it will help you. It will give health and strength to you. Getting near to Christ will help you see everything in a different light, because now you are living in the presence of our great God.

Take Psalm 43 and let it be your prayer template today. Just talk to God. By the time you get to the end, you will be thinking less about your soul and more about Him. Then you will be able to say, “I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”