Thursday - Psalm 42 - Why Am I Sad?

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ave you ever asked yourself, "Why am I sad?"  For many of us, we look and see the riches of God's mercy and the abundance of His grace (all around us), and yet at times we, (even as we are, God's children), can be absolutely overcome with grief.  David was sad, yet he believed sadness to be inappropriate for himself in his particular circumstance.

In a way, David's grief arose from His desperate thirst for God's presence (Psalm 42:1). Yet, even in that, he puzzled a little at his own melancholy.  He realized that his faith should have been strong enough to have given him the necessary confidence in God which he needed, even in his undesirable circumstance (Psalm 42:5).  But, when he heard the jeering of his critics... well, really the jeering of God's critics, it was more than he could bear (Psalm 42:9-10).

You may have heard the phrase, "Why worry when you can pray?"  Well, that pretty much sums up David's judgment of himself in this song. In the words of Nehemiah, " ...the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).  In the words of the apostle Paul, "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4).  Solomon said it this way, "A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).  David also, in Psalm 118:24 said, "This is the day which the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."  Jesus Himself said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11).  In Paul's epistle to the Romans, we read, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14:17).  James said that we can rejoice in our trials (James 1:2). And, Peter said that our faith in Christ is fittingly accompanied by ''joy unspeakable" (I Peter 1:8).