By David ReayWednesday 18 Aug 2021LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God! (NLT)
Our Psalmist is not a cheery optimist. Lament is the major theme of many of those Psalms. And yet, neither is he a melancholic depressive sunk into irreversible despair. His fluctuations of mood and expression are what make the Psalms so real to us. He is holding up a mirror to us.
If someone is discouraged, it is grievously unhelpful to simply tell them to praise God. In such a case, any expression of praise would be pious denial of the real situation. The despondency has to be acknowledged and accepted not dismissed as some ungodly aberration. Some of us by temperament are more inclined to discouragement and so we might struggle to praise.
And yet, this is what the Psalmist seeks to do, and what we are to seek to do. But this is not cheery optimism or dismissal of what is getting us down. It is recognition that just as our discouragement is one reality, the faithfulness of God is another and even greater reality. Praise does not arise out of psyching ourselves up, or out of simply looking on the brighter side of life. Sometimes any brightness is obscured by the dark shadows.
But we can still praise God even if it comes with tears or through clenched teeth or just weary sighs. We can still praise God because praise arises out of his character not our life situation. We praise God not because we feel good or because things in our life are good. We praise him because he is good.
Blessings
David