Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42:11

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You have never been alone. There has not been one instant in your life that the Lord has not been with you. When your heart hurt from a strained relationship, the Lord was right there with you. When your brain couldn’t shut off for the night and you laid there in bed with anxious thoughts swirling frantically, he was there. When you cried in your classroom, because you were overwhelmed with the responsibility of training your students, he was right next to you. You have never been alone.

The Lord tells us to trust in him. He tells us to lay all our anxiety at his feet. He tells us to fix our eyes on him. We know we can give all our hardships to him and yet, at times, we still find ourselves to be downcast. We can trust that the Lord has our best interest in mind and yet, we still struggle with worry, doubt, and fear. It can be overwhelming.

It turns out, we are not the only ones that have felt this way. In our reading for today, the Psalmist writes, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior, and my God.” King David is the one who wrote these words. Even this powerful ruler was struggling with feeling downcast, yet he knew that the Lord was the only one who he could put his trust in.

That is the same remedy for our sadness. When you are downcast, go to the Word. When we go to the things of this world for hope and understanding, we will be disappointed repeatedly. We will find ourselves stuck in the vicious cycle of being downcast.

When the Devil tempts us to forget that the Lord is walking right next to us throughout this life, open the Word as your weapon against his lies. Find promise after promise of the one who has gotten us through our hardest days.

The Lord was with us when things were tough. He is with us right now, whether things are going well or not. The Lord promises to be with us tomorrow, the next day, and every single day until we finally walk the streets of heaven with him.

No matter what we are going through remember God and what he does and has done for us. He’s been faithful. He is faithful. He will always be faithful. So, look up. Be downcast no more. You have Jesus.

Prayer:

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