“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 43:5
This Psalm captures some glorious self-talk.
I listened to a sermon this morning describe this Psalm as preaching the gospel to yourself. I’ve been asking God to give me opportunities to share His truth with others. This verse reminded me to share God’s truth with me!
I saw our daughter play an analogue of this process out this afternoon.
She and I were in the garage. She wanted to play basketball, which basically consisted of her dribbling around with absolutely no pattern and finally flinging a shot at our tiny hoop.
She made her first few, but as she began attempting shots from further than five feet, she missed several in a row.
Our daughter does not handle failure well. She got frustrated.
First came the grunts. Then came the slumped shoulders. Then came the sit-on-the-ground pouts.
I wanted to say something.
“Get up!”
“Get closer!”
“You can do it!”
I kept my mouth shut. I decided to see how she would work it out.
The garage floor is not clean. Our daughter was not on it long. She stood up within 30 seconds and began dribbling again. Her first shot post-tirade went in. She was elated.
She sank the next four shots.
I don’t know what she told herself. I could imagine a Christ-fearing version of my daughter saying, “Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed?”
I am not making lighting of the Psalm. Its writer was in far greater distress than our daughter.
But, like the Psalmist, our daughter kept going.
I pray for the Holy Spirit to work like that in my life and for my daughter to find reasons for hope and praise when the stakes are higher than a missed shot.