I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42:9-11)

These have long been two of my favourite psalms. They walk through a full progression of human experience.

Psalm 42 opens in a dry and barren place. God seems far away and the psalmist seems far away from God. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” People are taunting: “where is your God?” And the psalmist can only just remember the times when they used to go to church. But now the psalmist is lost, adrift. Far from God.

Then comes the refrain: “Why, my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

As the first scene passes to the second, the psalmist begins to remember. There’s a memory of what it was like when the relationship with God was strong and life-giving—filled with music, prayer, and love. There’s a memory of what it was like to stand in worship with the gathered congregation when things were good—when there was joy and praise and warm fellowship to be shared. The longing of the downcast soul causes one to think back, remember, and savour the goodness of what once was.

And that memory begins to spark some hard questions of lament, like why isn’t it that way now? God is still my rock, so God: “why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about oppressed...?” Why is it that I have to suffer these constant questions from my foes that make me doubt your presence and love? Why does there have to be some feeling of truth and pain in their lie about you being far off?

Then comes the refrain. “Why, my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

As Psalm 43 opens, the prayer turns from longing, remembering, and lament to petition. The fires of passion and the memory of a strong relationship the Psalmist still has with this God drives the Psalmist back to God to boldly ask for answers. “Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause... rescue me... send me your light and faithful care... let them bring me to... the place where you dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”

And then the refrain rings out once again. “Why, my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

This whole journey the psalmist takes from longing to remembering, to lament, to petition, to a vision of hope and restoration is exactly the Christian response to the often apparent silence of God. It is a curious, counter-cultural way to live—a way of faith and hope, not of sight. CS Lewis says it well in his book, the Screwtape letters as the senior demon writes to his junior counterpart, saying:

“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

With longing, memory, hope, and the support of one another, may this be our response as well.