Prescription for a Downcast Soul
By Shauna Leis
"Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
For I will yet praise Him,
My Savior and my God."
Psalm 42:11 NIV
For several years, I lived in a very dark time where I was fearful whether I would even survive. Family and friends, I felt, had deserted me. My job was falling apart. Most of all, I feared God had walked away from me for all I had done. My prodigal spirit continually fought against what I knew I should be and how I should be acting, and I made some extremely poor decisions. I slipped into a depression that I just knew I could never overcome. I had reached the bottom of my pit. Others' opinions and how they treated me began to consume my thoughts day after day, and I slowly forgot all that I had ever learned about God and His love.
King David in the Old Testament experienced much the same thing. At the pinnacle of his professional career, during the conquest of the kingdom, David fell. He did not just fall a little; he did not just slip into this self-made pit. David jumped headfirst into one of his largest pits he would ever create. David committed adultery and then murdered the husband of his adulteress to cover up the first mistake. Wow! Yet this man is the one who not long before this incident was considered a man after God's own heart. How could a man who was considered as having a heart like God's do something so ungodly?
To answer such a question, I think we have to look into our own hearts and lives and understand how God works. We were born with a very sinful nature that seeks to pull us in the opposite direction from where God calls for us to go. Romans 3:23 says "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Also our hearts are very deceitful, "above all things", according to Jeremiah 17. We should constantly question when our hearts try to convince us of something that might "feel" right, but in our brains we know that is the wrong direction.
David understood this power and wrote this psalm above about his downcast soul. In the midst of his depression and his fear that God may have forgotten him, or worse, that he could have out-sinned God's forgiveness, David cried out to God and proclaimed, "Even though I am downcast and depressed. Even though I may not understand my circumstances. Even though it feels like life itself is collapsing around me, I will still praise my God. I will put my faith in Him and trust that He will pull me up out of my pit and set my feet again on solid ground." David put His hope in the only thing that could possibly save Him, faith in the Almighty God of Heaven and a love that surpasses all understanding for His children.
When I slipped into my own depression, much like David, God reminded me of the same thing. No matter what I had done in my life (and trust me I had done plenty!), or what circumstances surrounded me, His love and sacrifice for me were greater and reached further. Faith in God and His love was the ultimate prescription for my downcast soul. It brought me back up out of my depression and convinced me that I was worth something once again. Nothing else could have possibly fixed what was broken in my life - my heart and my spirit. God blew away all of the worthless pieces of me, like blowing chaff away from the wheat grains, to find the parts that were worthwhile. He showed me that the best way to lift a downcast spirit was for me to look "up" towards Him.
Pray with me: Heavenly Father, we are not worthy of even standing in Your shadow. Lord, sometimes the weight of the world and all that comes with it causes our spirits to sink and become downcast. Whether it is weight by our own doing, our own sin and mistakes, or whether it is just by the circumstances that we find surrounding us, our spirits start to sink and cannot find their way back out of it all. God, You alone are the ultimate prescription for our downcast spirits. You are our hope! You are our salvation! We will call to mind all the ways You have already been faithful to us and praise You all the more. We will praise You even in the midst of our circumstances because we know that You are ever faithful. You are our God, and You are our Savior. Please, Lord, remind us every day of how much You love us in return and that You will never leave us nor forsake us. We love You more and more every day and commit our hearts, minds, and souls to You!