Psalm 42: Three Ways to Cope with Grief

Guest post by my son Everett, age 18

Today I would like to talk about grief. We live in a temporal world that is subject to the passing of time. And as long as time affects us, we grow old, we watch people around us die, and we are grieved by such a reality. We might wonder why it is that humanity has never come to terms with the way things are. Generations pass and still we weep at the death of those near to us. Even as believers, knowing that we will meet again in eternity, we still feel so sad to be separated from one another. I believe that physical pain exists to let us know when something is wrong inside us, like when we’ve been injured, or when we are sick. What if emotional pain exists to let us know that something is wrong with the state of the world? Maybe grief is our spirit crying out against something that wasn’t supposed to happen? I think we can make the statement that all people, when they stop and really think about it, inherently feel a longing for something more; or for someone more. We all feel this emptiness, this loneliness. We have a gaping hole in our hearts where God belongs. This feeling, I think, is what the sons of Korah were feeling when they wrote Psalm 42 (NASB), which says: For the music director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

            1As the deer pants for the water brooks,

            So my soul pants for You, God.

            2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;

            When shall I come and appear before God?

            3 My tears have been my food day and night,

            While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

            4 I remember these things and pour out my soul within me.

            For I used to go over with the multitude and walk them to the house of God,

            With a voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude celebrating a festival.

            5 Why are you in despair, my soul?

            And why are you restless within me?

            Wait for God, for I will again praise Him

            For the help of His presence, my God.

            6 My soul is in despair within me;

            Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan

            And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

            7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;

            All Your breakers and Your waves have passed over me.

            8 The Lord will send His goodness in the daytime;

            And His song will be with me in the night,

            A prayer to the God of my life.

            9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?

            Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

            10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries taunt me,

            While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

            11 Why are you in despair, my soul?

            And why are you restless within me?

            Wait for God, for I will again praise Him

            For the help of His presence, my God.

            The psalmists are displaying their yearning to be with God. For some reason, they aren’t able to go with the multitude to the house of God, and that has deeply grieved them. Besides being a heartfelt cry of longing for God’s presence, this psalm also shows us how to cope with all forms of anguish. In it, we can identify three steps for enduring grief, which are: (1) honestly express your pain, (2) remember God’s faithfulness, and (3) wait for the Lord. Let’s look at the first one.

            Verses 1-2 & 5b, say, “As the deer pants for the water brooks,

            So my soul pants for You, God.

            My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;

            When shall I come and appear before God?

            Why are you in despair, my soul?

            And why are you restless within me?”

            The psalmists are expressing their sorrow and recognizing what it is that has grieved them. In their case, they long to be in God’s presence. But anytime we are grieved, the first thing we should do is discover what exactly it is that’s grieved us, and then express our grief to God. Sometimes pinpointing the source of our grief can be difficult. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that some days I just feel sad without really knowing why. I’ve thought about this, and I think that to get to the heart of the matter, we have to look at what grief is, and where it comes from. Remember how I said that grief is our spirit crying out against everything wrong with the world? I think there are six things that cause us grief. These are: saying goodbye, being alone, things coming to an end, the passage of time, sin, and death. All of these can be summed up by the word “loss.”

            Starting with the first on the list, I don’t think human beings are supposed to say goodbye to each other. God designed us to cope with a lot of things, but I don’t think saying goodbye is one of them. Even just temporarily, we always feel so sad to be separated from anyone we really care about. We try to make light of it. Saying, “See you later,” feels easier because it’s a promise of eventually being reunited, but we would be happier to never part ways at all.

            Being alone is upsetting because people aren’t supposed to be alone. We are supposed to be with God, so isolation is unsettling to us. The fact that people have the capacity for camaraderie and companionship is further evidence of the unnatural state of solitude. Even lone-wolf type of people suffer from loneliness as a form of grief, no one wants to be truly alone.

            “Things coming to an end,” is another way of saying “loss.” All these afflictions have loss as a part of them, but this one really centers around it. When someone loses their job- their job came to an end, it’s depressing for them. It’s the same with losing relationships, or losing possessions: we were made to enjoy the things of eternity that last forever, so losing the temporary things of this world feels unnatural. Another way that things coming to an end grieves us—and this goes on to the next point—is the loss of a moment, or of a feeling. Let me explain what I mean by that. I have always felt depressed by endings; when something I enjoy comes to an end—whether it’s time I spent with someone, or a good book I read, or (as I’m experiencing) my years in school—I always wish it could’ve lasted longer. We have a tendency to be grieved by the passage of time in and of itself. When we find joy somewhere, we want to hold on to that moment as long as we can, but time keeps moving, the sun goes down, and we are grieved by the loss.

            Continuing on that same topic, the passage of time grieves us because, as my mom said in her song “Made for Eternity,” we are made for eternity—(which lasts forever)—so we aren’t adapted to time. Growing old troubles us, watching children grow up amazes us, and the years that just fly by baffle us. We are hurried on and stressed out by the constant, ceaseless flow of time, and it causes us a lot of grief.

            The last two types of grief are caused by sin and death. Sin grieves everyone involved in it, both the sinner and the sinned against. Sin also brings loss of righteousness, which should grieve us. But grief is actually a much-needed feeling to have towards sin because no one can truly repent without grief. Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11, which says, “As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.”

            Paul is rejoicing here because the church in Corinth repented of their sin. They saw how they had done wrong, and that grieved them, but that grief they felt led them to repenting. This “godly grief” that Paul is talking about is the grief we feel when we see our sin and how we’ve done wrong; it’s the grief of God. We must feel Godly grief if we are to realize the weight of our sin and truly repent, then we can be led to salvation without regret: we will be cleansed of our sin and become blameless in the eyes of the Lord.

            Finally, death grieves us most of all because it means saying goodbye to those we care about, and, in some cases, the loss of our loved one leaves us all alone. It means our lives on Earth are coming to an end. It looms over us with the passing of time, and it is the ultimate result of sin. It’s like a conglomeration of all six afflictions that cause grief. Death is also distressing because we are left unsure of if or when we’ll ever see the deceased person again.

            Saying goodbye, being alone, things coming to an end, the passage of time, sin, and death. These six losses afflict so much grief and pain on the world. But none of them are supposed to exist. We belong with God in eternity, which is why grief is a good thing to feel if we sin. If we didn’t feel grieved by sin, why would we repent? How could we be saved? I know this is a sermon on grief, but I cannot pass a chance to preach repentance: it’s simply too urgent, it cannot be over-stressed.

            But getting back on track, now that we’ve looked at what causes us grief, the next part of the first step to coping with grief is to express it. Some cultures suppress their grief. I don’t know about other cultures, but in America, some people suppress their emotions with antidepressants rather than express it, and I don’t think that’s a healthy solution. We need to express our grief in order to heal. But, we should keep in mind that the way we express our grief is important: we want to express it in the right way. Different peoples around the world have traditional ways of expressing grief, like how some cultures dress in all black while they’re in mourning and others wear all white. Some Chinese cultures mourn for 100 days to express their grief. Some Aboriginal peoples would cut themselves across the arm or the chest to express their grief. I don’t think we should stop taking care of ourselves while we mourn, must less harm ourselves. In Leviticus 19:28, God instructed the Israelites, saying, “You are not to make gashes on your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.”

            That makes me think that other societies Israel encountered must have been hurting themselves as a sign of mourning, but self-harm is pointless, and it goes against God’s law. So rather than turn to these ways of expressing our grief, what should we do instead? We should pray and tell the Lord everything that has caused us sorrow. It’s important to be honest with God, and also with ourselves, about why we are grieved. If it’s hard to understand our grief, then we should ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding so that we may address our grief at the root of the problem.

            The second step in coping with grief is to remember God’s faithfulness. We see this is verses 6-8 of Psalm 42, which say, “My soul is in despair within me;

            Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan

            And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

            Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;

            All Your breakers and Your waves have passed over me.

            The Lord will send His goodness in the daytime;

            And His song will be with me in the night,

            A prayer to the God of my life.”

            The psalmists’ souls are in despair, so they’re remembering all the times the Lord came through for them, and we should strive to do the same. When we experience loss, we should give thanks for what we still have. If we lose someone dear to us, we should thank the Lord for the time we had with them. As we give thanks to God, we’ll realize just how much He’s done for us, and we will rejoice in the fact that no matter what, no one can take God’s love away from us. We can take heart in Romans 8:38-39, which says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

            It’s ok to be grieved, and to feel sorrow, but when we stop and think about it, Jesus gave His life for us, so we have a lot to be grateful for. It’s good to remember these things so we don’t utterly sink into despair. We should follow Job’s example: he lost everything he had in an instant, but Job 1:20-21 explains his reaction, it says, “Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

            We should remember that God gave us life, and our lives belong to Him. So whenever we are grieved, we should give thanks for all He’s given us.

            The third step in coping with grief is to wait for the Lord. We see this in verses 5 & 11 of Psalm 42, they both say, “Why are you in despair, my soul?

            And why are you restless within me?

            Wait for God, for I will again praise Him

            For the help of His presence, my God.”

            The psalmists are asking a good question: why should we despair, or our souls be downcast? We can wait for the Lord, because the hope we have in Him outweighs all the grief in the world.

Paul talks about this hope in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, which says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”

            Barnes’ Notes on the Bible has quite a lot to say about the people who have no hope. He says, “Their sorrow was caused not only by the fact that their friends were removed from them by death, but from the fact that they had no evidence that their souls were immortal; or that, if they still lived, that they were, happy; or that their bodies would rise again. Hence, when they buried them, they buried their hopes in the grave, and so far as they had any evidence, they were never to see them again. Their grief at parting was not mitigated by the belief that the soul was now happy, or by the prospect of again being with them in a better world. It was on this account, in part, that the pagans indulged in expressions of such excessive grief. When their friends died, they hired men to play in a mournful manner on a pipe or trumpet, or women to howl and lament in a dismal manner. They beat their breasts; uttered loud shrieks; rent their garments; tore off their hair; cast dust on their heads, or sat down in ashes. It is not improbable that some among the Thessalonians, on the death of their pious friends, kept up these expressions of excessive sorrow. To prevent this, and to mitigate their sorrow, the apostle refers them to the bright hopes which Christianity had revealed, and points them to the future glorious re-union with the departed pious dead. Hence, learn:

(1) That the world without religion is destitute of hope. It is just as true of the pagan world now as it was of the ancient pagans, that they have no hope of a future state. They have no evidence that there is any such future state of blessedness; and without such evidence there can be no hope.

(2) that the excessive sorrow of the children of this world, when they lose a friend, is not to be wondered at. They bury their hopes in the grave. They part, for all that they know or believe, with such a friend for ever. The wife, the son, the daughter, they consign to silence - to decay - to dust, not expecting to meet them again. They look forward to no glorious resurrection when that body shall rise, and when they shall be reunited to part no more. It is no wonder that they weep - for who would not weep when he believes that he parts with his friends for ever?”

            So many non-Christians, especially pagans, atheists, and agnostics, are left feeling completely hopeless about death when they really think about it. The secular world has the “seven stages of grief” which are: shock/disbelief, denial, guilt/bargaining, sadness/regret, anger, acceptance, and hope (though I don’t know what it is they are hoping in.)

When talking about those that have died, I’ve heard non-Christians say things like, “they’re in a better place now.” But they don’t know what they even mean by “a better place.” It’s a kind of self-deception, like telling yourself “everything will be alright” without considering the reasoning behind it. The secular world has only false hope.

Remember 2 Corinthians 7:10? Paul talked about “Godly grief” and “worldly grief.” He said, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.” Remember how I said that Godly grief is necessary for repentance? The grief that we naturally feel at goodbyes and death and the like are, I think, also Godly grief; we mourn for the broken state of the world. Worldly grief, on the other hand, makes me think of all forms of unproductive depression, like moping, sulking, brooding- the list goes on. Take it from me, as someone who’s been guilty of more of these things than I’d like to admit, none of these forms of worldly grief are worthwhile pastimes. Moping is like pouting, where you feel like life is so unfair because you can’t always get what you want. This is childish behavior, for instead, we should rejoice in what God has given us and ask God to change our worldly desires for Godly ones. Sulking is like moping, but I tend to think of moping involving whining to other people about our woes, whereas sulking is a solitary endeavor. Basically, sulking is sitting by yourself and dwelling on your misery to no end. Brooding is like dark contemplation of everything you don’t like, but in a very negative way. Its end result is wallowing in a self-centered mire of your own unhappiness to no end.

            Christians, however, can cope with grief because we have hope. The secular world doesn’t have any cause to believe that they’ll ever see someone again after they die, but we Christians know that we will all be together forever in eternity. And while death grieves us in this world, I think the hope we have is this: if we experience joy at being reunited with people we care about after only a brief separation, how much greater will our joy be at being reunited with our dearly departed in eternity!

            Even still, it’s hard to be apart from those we care about, but while death grieves us so much, God wants to comfort us in our times of mourning. We see this in Matthew 5:4, when Jesus gave His sermon on the mount, He said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

            God is grieved by the grief and sorrow we feel about death, for Jesus wept when Lazarus died, even though He fully knew that He would resurrect him. I think this is likely because God knows better than we do about how it’s supposed to be, and how eternity will be. God wants us to turn to Him in our times of sorrow so that He can draw us nearer to Him and let Him be our strength. Paul talks about something that I think is to the same point in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, when he wrote, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Paul had previously explained that he had a “thorn” in his flesh that was keeping him from exalting himself, and when he asked God to remove it from him, God said “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

            God will carry us through our darkest hours if we let Him. When we have been exhausted by this world, the Lord will sustain us, so long as we follow Him. I think that this also stands for us in our emotional weakness, like in times of mourning, that God will be our strength when we are too grieved to stand otherwise. The thing to realize is that God truly loves us: He cares for us more than we know. And God wants to relieve us of the grief we feel for His sake. As David put it in Psalm 56:8, “You yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

            The phrase, “I kept your tears in a bottle,” means that the person’s tears are precious to you. If God puts our tears in His bottle, then He cares deeply about our feelings of grief and sorrow.

            We can rest in our faith and wait for the Lord, He will never forsake us, and that’s our hope. As Christians, we do not need to grieve as the world grieves. We can honestly express our pain, remember God’s faithfulness in the past, and wait for the Lord to comfort us. While we are living in this temporal world, we miss our loved ones who’ve left us, and our spirits cry out against everything that’s wrong, but don’t despair, we won’t have to wait forever. One day, Jesus will take us to be with Him, and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, there won’t be any more sorrow or pain, and the God-shaped hole in our hearts will be filled beyond what we can imagine; we just have to wait patiently until then. But remember that even as we wait, we’re never alone. The Lord is our Comforter is times of anguish, what then can dismay us?

            Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for loving us so much. We lay all our grief down at Your feet. Please help us to be honest in expressing our pain to You. Help us remember Your constant faithfulness, and help us to wait for You to comfort us. Our hope is in You, Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.