Psalm 43:1-5
Why Am I in Despair?

Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.
      Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.
For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me?
      Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Oh, send out your light and your truth.
      Let them lead me.
      Let them bring me to your holy hill,
      To your tents.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
      to God, my exceeding joy.
I will praise you on the harp, God, my God.
Why are you in despair, my soul?
      Why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God!
      For I shall still praise him:
      my Savior, my helper, and my God.

World English Bible

I have to admit it is a frequent occurrence for me. What is frustrating me this time? What has made me angry? The Hebrew word shachach translated here as "despair" is sometimes also translated as "to cause to bow down" or "to bring down"—so what bows me down? What burdens me and brings me down? Looking at the first of the chapter, the psalmist is not burdened with death threats from attacking armies or serious conditions of clinical depression. He appears to be responding to routine, daily pressures of life just like those that I permit that distracts me from living in God's joy.

I usually don't point to myself when I get frustrated. I usually find some situation, some event, or more often, someone, that I can blame for my despair:

      "That person had no reason to say that about me!"

      "I shouldn't have to put up with the consequences of their decision!"

      (And no matter how old I become, I still childishly revert to…) "Life isn't fair!"

By the time I do start to analyze my situation and focus my attention back on myself, I find that I have an even more insidious and damaging response that weighs me down and takes me further from where God wants me to be:

      "That's okay—it isn't so bad."

To internalize and rationalize my frustration is to commit myself to managing it and controlling it with just my own strength. I don't usually come to this place from overconfidence in my wisdom and depth, but out of embarrassment and shame at my earlier emotional outbursts. I just want to pretend those annoyances and disappointments don't exist and I didn't react the ways I didn't want to react. Somewhere in my psyche is a closet stuffed to the ceiling with frustrations I have denied, and I fight to keep that closet door closed.

If you have never experienced feelings like this, you really should keep reading, because your closet of frustration will burst one day. If you have found the way to overcome feelings like this, you have learned the wisdom passed along to us by this psalmist.

The question in verse 5 is direct and confrontational: Why should we still live in despair? Why have we given up our joy? Why have we chosen not to believe that God will see us through this and every situation?

We might miss this point because the first verse speaks of vindication and delivery from the people that were frustrating the psalmist. That is an honest expression of frustration, but the psalmist is not prescribing how God should work. Unlike my "that's okay" response, the psalmist does not try to pretend the frustration doesn't exist. The psalmist even admits his hateful feelings, his derogatory opinions, and his sinful and emotional reactions—and expresses them directly to God so that God can begin the healing process.

Instead, of vindication and retribution to those who oppose him, the psalmist calls for… light and truth. This is not truth to bludgeon the deceitful or light to educate the ignorant (even if they seem need it). This is light and truth to guide the psalmist back to a focus on God—back to the holy hill to be close to God—back to the altar to give himself again to God—back to the joy! The light and truth call us to pray an open and honest expression of our frustrations and temptations to God. Then the light and truth call us to receive the healing and guidance that God sends us in return.

I need the challenge of verse 5 confronting my frustration and anger. For some of you, verse 5 confronts your sadness and hurt or your disappointment in others. Verse 5 even challenges the feelings of self-righteousness we build around ourselves to rat ionalize and minimize what "those kind of people" have done to us. No matter what method of unhealthy reactions we have, there is only one healthy and productive response to the frustrations of life: "Hope in God!"