Find the Fuel to Stay the Course: Hope in Despair

This morning the teaching was on Psalm 42/43 (really it was originally one, fyi). The pastor took us through what I find to be the perfect devotional explanation of the duality of our feelings as we walk through life and work with faith. 

The vision was so clear but now the honeymoon is over. The success is numerically there, but everything just seems blah. It's been hard for so stinking long, you have no idea if rest is a possibility. Or, and in especially as leaders, that loud cheering section has evaporated but you don't feel like you've done anything wrong. In the hardest times, we can experience both utter depression and despair, yet we still find hope and know God is good and there is more to come- even if not here.

While the entire psalm(s) is so real and raw in its depiction of pain and joy and hope coexisting, Psalm 42:4-7 (HCSB) stopped me in my tracks:

I remember this as I pour out my heart:

how I walked with many,

leading the festive procession to the house of God,

with joyful and thankful shouts.

Why am I so depressed?

Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

I am deeply depressed;

therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan

and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;

all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.

If you've served in a leading capacity pastoral or otherwise, the mountaintop moments where time freezes and everything has brilliant color and energy are the stuff dreams are made of. We are fully His, fully connected and even leading others to connect with Him.

As a pastor who has served in that role vocationally, those moments where you get a front row seat of life change and the unexplainable are memories you simply want to stay in. When He calls us to move on, those memories are able to keep us warm and fuel us for the next stage of the journey.

That being said, those memories can also become haunting reminders of a time that seems to have evaporated, never to be touched again. So what are we left to do when those times have ended and we must move on per the call, per the season, on the pilgrimage to the next stop and assignment? We have the responsibility of choosing to leverage those experiences to propel us forward instead of dwelling in those memories or harboring bitterness for "what once was," thereby squandering the wisdom we gained to take the next challenge with new energy and insight.

Like us, the psalmist lament does not simply say he is purely positive in this time, he continues to try to balance the pain and the inexplicable hope in His Father. Verse seven jumped to me today as they walked through. He is depressed, but instead of going deeper in that, he says "therefore I remember."

What does he remember? the land of the Jordan and Mount Hermon from Mount Mizar. Why is that significant? Well, while we don't know Mount Mizar's specific geographic location, we know this: Mount Hermon is the peak generating meltwater. Meltwater that feeds waterfalls like those at Banias (Caesarea Philippi) that spill out to form the start of the Jordan. Mount Hermon is significant and the source of life.

Mizar, on the other hand: Mizar, mi'-zär (Heb.)- while the location is not explicitly known today, is the smaller being. smallness; reduced; little; few; brought low; insignificant; despised; dishonored. The psalmist says he remembers Mount Hermon and its glory from Mount Mizar, his small seat to experience the fullness of God's glory. Not only does he remember the moments of experiencing God fully as he mourns the far off experience of it, he can still feel it and he goes back to it intentionally to sustain him.

When he says that (v.7) Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me, this psalmist knew he had a big assignment, the season was difficult, but he could endure because he had experienced the all-encompassing presence of God and he could cling to that in moments of despair.

As I meditated on verse seven, the phrase "swept over" and connection to the language of that whole section is meant to be a source of comfort and a reminder to think to those moments and remember. The root meanings of that phraseology actually connect to a moment in scripture I've always loved.

In Exodus 33, Moses is having a hard time as well. He is leading a people that have forgotten their God- and very quickly at that. The journey is far from over, though, and Moses tells God to endure he needs to see His full glory. God says His glory would be too overpowering- that no one can see that and live. He agrees to cover Moses with his hand and "pass by."

"Pass by" and "swept over" are the same. The psalmist and Moses, both are able to endure because God has comes so close, allowed through His gracious Love for His creation, to come near and fuel them to continue. It's equally important to note, though, that those two men, likewise, sought that from Him.

We can be depressed. We can be overwhelmed by despair. We can mourn every memory of the amazing moments past and things lost. We can endure, however, if we can connect with those glorious experiences of seeking the glory of God and Him responding with a nearness unlike anything else. Our responsibility is in seeking and listening, believing and obeying.

Whether the company is seemingly tanking, the team who was on fire and is now dismantling itself, the energy you once felt is now fatigue, or your voice has been lost, His power is not just bigger than all of it; He is the only thing that actually deserves the focus, the faith and the energy. Moments with Him, experiencing His glory, are what will sustain more that anything else.