The hearts of saints were cast down as they remembered God from their homes. Those homes felt so much like “the land of Jordan and of Hermon, and from Mount Mizar” (v. 6)—remote, isolated places in Israel. Saints remembered the times they had joined the crowds in worship; now they wondered to God, “Why have you forgotten me?” (v. 9). In God’s mercy, many people were able to return to public worship after a few months.

Perhaps the episode enabled more people to taste the despair that many Christians face regularly. Psalm 42 expresses the longing of a soul for righteous things that have not been satisfied yet in this life or are absent for now. All of us struggle with unrealized desires, some of which deeply burden the soul. Perhaps the most difficult are those in which there is no evident sin standing between us and our desire. Physically ill and disabled bodies ache as the soul groans: “Why? How long?” Single people say, “I thought I’d be married by now.” Couples cry out, “When will God give us children?” The unemployed ask, “Why won’t You give me work, Lord, to support my family?” Why doesn’t God seem to provide the good gifts He promises? Why do enemies always seem to taunt?

Psalm 42 directs us to talk to ourselves about our circumstances, distress, pain, and even despair. In so doing, it connects us with the heart of our Savior who confessed during His passion, “Now is my soul troubled” (John 12:27). Jesus suffered agony and despair in Gethsemane and at Golgotha, but not for His own sin. No, it was for our sake and for the glory of the Father that He was willing to suffer to the point of saying on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). He was willing, for the joy set before Him, to endure the cross, despising the shame (Heb. 12:2). Consequently, He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.