Psalm 42:11 Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? hope you in God: for I shall yet praise him… I. CAUSES. 1. Physical weakness. 2. A constitutional tendency to look on the darker side of things. 3. The misapprehension of certain main spiritual truths, such as the character of God, conversion, etc. II. TREATMENT OF THE DISEASE. 1. If physical weakness be the secret of our spiritual depression, then the only effectual cure is to aim at strengthening that which is really weak, namely, the bodily health; and not to weaken the body still more by fretting over a lowness of spirits which results from our feeble physical condition almost as inevitably as loss of light follows from the setting of the sun. 2. If, again, it is a constitutional tendency to look on the dark side of things generally, that has to answer for the gloomy hue of our religion, the obvious remedy is to look on the brighter aspect. 3. Or if, by unhappy training, or through the bias of temperament, we have come to entertain such views of God, and of spiritual things, as are directly causative of religious despondency, then we must do our best to remedy the evil by acquiring right views. Above all, we must sedulously and prayerfully cherish right views of God, whom we dishonour by regarding as a captious taskmaster — Him whose nature, and whose name, is Love! (T. F. Lockyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. |
    |