Psalm 43:5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? / And why are you disquieted within me? / Hope in God; / For I shall yet praise Him, / The help of my countenance and my God.”

February 18th, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Three times in this psalm David gave himself a pep talk, encouraging himself to hope in God. It’s all too easy to be so overwhelmed by the storms of life that we become discouraged and feel hopeless. Hope, in a Biblical sense, means to possess an expectation of, anticipation of, coming good. Having hope in God means that we are expecting the Lord to work things out well. It delivers us from a despair that would tell us that nothing we do really matters anyway.

Hope enables us to take on even the most seemingly tedious job with enthusiasm, because we expect God to make it all work out. Historian Elmer Bendiner told the remarkable story of a B-17 bomber that flew a bombing mission over Germany in the latter days of World War II. The plane was hit several times by shells and flak, some of which directly hit the fuel tank. Miraculously, the bomber did not explode. When it landed, 11 unexploded, 20mm shells were taken out of the fuel tank. The shells were dismantled by one of the crew and to his amazement, were all empty of explosives. Inside one shell he found a note written in Czech that read: “This is all we can do for you now.” A member of the Czech underground, working in a German munitions factory, had omitted the explosives in at least 11 of the 20mm shells on his assembly line. That worker must have often wondered if the quiet work he was doing to subvert the Nazi war effort was making any difference at all in the outcome of the war.

“LORD, we have decided to place our trust and hope in You to make everything we do this day be beneficial to Your Kingdom.”

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Psalms 43 KJV

¹ Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.  

² For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.

⁴ Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. 

⁵ Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.