The theme of the book of Ecclesiastes is ‘even though life is really difficult, do your best to enjoy God’s many blessings’ (e.g. Ecc 9:1-12). Sadly however, Ecclesiastes doesn’t tell us how. For this, we need to turn elsewhere.
Psalm 42 begins with the author saying his soul thirsts for the Lord, like a deer in a drought thirsts for water. He then outlines some of the reasons for this spiritual drought; being away from the Temple (exile), being attacked by foes (enemies), and undergoing unexplained adversity (enigma). We can add to this sin (evil) as well, for of course God is going to feel distant if we’ve seared our conscience in some way.
Yet the psalmist then tells us how he deals with such times in v. 5. So we don’t miss it though, he repeats it again in v. 11, then again in Ps 43:
‘Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.’
The way the psalmist deals with spiritual lows is to talk to himself. English preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones says of this passage; ‘have you realised that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself’. He says ‘when we wake up in the morning, our soul is talking to us. Many of those thoughts have not even originated in us, but they bring back the problems of yesterday’. If we let it, our soul will continue to talk to us throughout the whole day.
Unless that is, we interrupt it. As Christians, our first job each day is to (i) interrupt our soul, (ii) speak to our soul, and (iii) get our soul happy in the Lord, through reading his word, and praying to him. So if you want to find joy tomorrow, start by interrupting your soul, then speak to it the wonderful truths of the Lord Jesus.
