Objective Truth
and our subjective experience
Please take the time to read Psalm 42 and reacquaint yourself with this beautiful poetic masterpiece. For many, the stanzas “As the deer pants after the water brooks, so does my soul pant after you, O God,” and “Deep calls unto deep at the roar of your waterfalls,” are reflections of what their soul often wishes to pray. I thank God for these Psalms that help us perfectly say what we, at times, wish to pray.
There is great wisdom in the way this Psalm handles the human experience. There is objective truth. God is “my God,” and “my salvation.” “By day the Lord commands his steadfast love.” While the Psalmist doesn’t use these words, in confessing these objective truths about God he is saying that he knows God never leaves him nor forsakes him. He is loved. He is saved and safe.
At the same time and intermingled amongst the breadcrumbs of objective truth about God, the Psalmist laments over what he feels. He is thirsty for God. He is cast down. His soul is in turmoil. He feels forgotten by God. This is his subjective experience.
What he knows to be true, what is objectively true, is seemingly contradicted by what he feels and what his subjective experience is at that moment. The castle walls of his mind, the bulwark of his theological reasoning are being struck by the battering ram of his experience. The barbarian hordes of unbelief are taunting him, shouting, “Where is your God?” And he wonders…
When we are struggling, these kinds of Psalms remind us our struggles are not unique and we are not alone in them. As Peter wrote, “Resist [the devil], firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world,” (1 Peter 5:9). Psalm 42 also helps us by providing us a pathway forward. Do what the Psalmist did.
Pray.
Pray honestly.
As Martin Llyod Jones observed, talk to yourself like the Psalmist did. Take control over your mind. Say to yourself, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?”
And then, remind yourself to “Hope in God.”
Have faith that you will “again praise Him.”
Because what is objectively true (that He is your salvation and your God) is what is true.
