Perhaps you have the sounds of Elvis singing “Blue Christmas” in your head. Holidays seem especially hard for people in the pain and agony of suffering and loss. We may understand the description of a blue Christmas as we spend time without the ones we love or attempt to celebrate through illness and pain. It seems a much greater stretch to suggest that we can have a blue thanksgiving. Who wants to give thanks for being blue? With the right view of God and his redemptive plan, it is possible for believers to give thanks even through the “bluest” of times.
In Psalm 42, the Sons of Korah take us through the consideration of a downcast soul, but it is a certain type of downcast soul. The soul described in Psalm 42 is one that pants and thirsts for God and longs to stand before him.
Psalm 42:1-2 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
The simple fact of this Psalm, and one that brings light to the entire Psalm, is that this is written from the perspective of a faithful believer. Christians may have a downcast soul, but they have an ultimate longing beyond this world. They have an ultimate focus of God and desire to be with him. This means that Christians also have a particular view of God. They thirst for God like a deer thirsts for water. God is not a sadistic ogre who has brought pain and suffering into our lives for his own pleasure of our torment. He is ultimate goodness who operates his sovereign will even through the fallen nature of a sin corrupted humanity living in a corrupted world. His goodness in both his being and his works are beyond the capacity of our understanding. We know he is ultimately good beyond all that we see and experience in this world and we long to be with him and to be like him. When shall we come and appear before God?
It is with this presupposition of a good God that we long to be with, that we can ask the question, “Why are you downcast O my soul?” As you read through Psalm 42 you realize that the downcast soul of a believer knows the truth beyond their suffering. They know that God is our Savior. They know that he is worthy of praise. They know that the suffering of waves crashing over them is not out of his control. They know that their enemies of this world will not have final victory (not even the enemy of death). They know that the temporal suffering of this world will be short lived compared to the hope of eternal praise. They know that God’s love has not left them and that songs of God’s goodness make their way into their prayers. All these truths are held amid the blue and downcast soul of a believer. It is the mourning believer who can say, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”
Why not hear it all for yourself and read the whole Psalm.
To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. 5 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 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10 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?" 11 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.
In your blue thanksgiving, remember, there is still reason to give thanks. There is hope in God for those who thirst to be with him.