The way forward when God feels absent (Psalm 42)

As life expectancy increases, more people encounter the effects of dementia. Seeing a loved one forget details of their lives or confuse the identity of even their nearest and dearest can feel like witnessing the slow death of the person. It highlights for us how important memory is in our sense of self. In a different way, Western societies today suffer from a form of memory loss in relation to God, though this is a wilful forgetting, a deliberate turning away from our Christian roots. Many continue to uphold certain ethical standards such as the importance of justice for the vulnerable or the worth of the individual yet have forgotten and deny the God who gave such dignity when He created us all in His image. Such ideals no longer form a coherent worldview with God at its centre but are disparate echoes whose source is no longer remembered. With that loss of memory comes confusion about who we are in this world.

Remembering the past

The Bible has much to say about remembering as a strategy for keeping our lives on track in faithfulness to God. Our psalm is a good example of this. The psalmist opens his lament with a plaintive cry, a thirst for God whose presence is as needful for life as the cool, clear waters of a brook on a parched day (Ps 42:1-2). Without memory, however, there would be no distress. The absence of God is painful precisely because the psalmist remembers His presence in the past (Ps 42:4)! In a way, actively recalling what it was like to worship in fellowship with others is torture, yet in wilfully forgetting, there could only be apathy and indifference. Remembering intensifies the desire and that thirst for God is a first step towards seeking Him and not reconciling ourselves to a diminished existence.

Remembering God’s character

Recalling his past experience with God can only be the start, however. The psalmist exhorts himself not only to look back but to look forward and do so with hope (Ps 42:5). The word for ‘hope’ here can also mean waiting expectantly and it is not some vague optimism but an anticipation with a focus. Why? Because such hope is rooted in the reality of God’s character and this is what the psalmist now actively recalls (Ps 42:6). Even though his despair is compared to the chaotic forces of the sea tossing him around helplessly and sucking him down into the depth (Ps 42:7), he confesses the Lord’s faithful covenant love (NASB ‘lovingkindness’) that will preserve him (Ps 42:8). Despite feeling forgotten by God and mocked by others (Ps 42:9-10), there is a movement towards hope as the psalmist’s description becomes more personal. From calling the Lord ‘the living God’ (i.e. the source of life, Ps 42:2), there is a shift to ‘the God of my life’ (v.8), to ‘God my rock’ (v.9) and ultimately to ‘my God’ (Ps 42:11).

Advent: anticipation and remembrance

As we approach Advent and the beginning of the new church year, we enter a season of both anticipation and remembrance. We remember the coming of God into our midst as a helpless baby all those years ago and we anticipate experiencing afresh the joys of His presence with us. Like the psalmist, however, we may go through periods of dryness and feelings of God’s absence, and it may seem easier to let things slide, to accept the status quo because remembering a better past is too painful. Yet, our remembering may help us to awaken to ‘a holy discontent’ that pushes us to seek God again and not be satisfied with a life without the Lord’s presence. Like Jacob, who wrestled with God and would not let Him go until He blessed him (Gen 32:26), such action may make things worse before they can be better. More importantly, the movement towards hope comes not from reminiscing about ‘the good old days’ but in remembering the God we seek. He is indeed faithful, loving, life-giving, the God of our life, our rock, our God.

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