This document discusses dealing with depression through examining Psalms 42-43. It summarizes that the Psalms describe common symptoms of depression like extreme unhappiness, weeping, loss of appetite and joy. It notes common triggers as being taunted, losses, oppression by enemies and challenges without answers. The Psalms provide guidance for dealing with depression by drawing near to God, analyzing what is causing struggles, stirring faith in God, encouraging oneself with biblical truths, fixing hope on God as one's life and source of joy, and praying.

1. PSALM 42-43
Dealing With
Depression

2. Textual/Translation Problem…
42:5, 42:11, 43:5
Mary likes now…
Mary like→s→now…
Mary like snow…
Preference: read all 3 vv the same.

3. As the deer pants for the water
brooks, So my soul pants for You,
O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God; When shall I
come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
While they say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

4. These things I remember and
I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the
throng and lead them in procession
to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and
thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.

5. Why are you in despair,
O my soul?
And why have you become
disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance
and my God.

6. My soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You
from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves
have rolled over me.

7. Yahweh will command
His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me
in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to God my rock,
"Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of
the oppression of the enemy?"

8. As a shattering of my bones,
my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

9. Why are you in despair,
O my soul?
And why have you become
disturbed within me?
Hope in God,
for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance
and my God.

10. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common symptoms of depression...
• Extreme unhappiness...Intense
longing for change, 1-2
• Weeping, 3
• Loss of appetite, 3.
• Loss of joy, 4

11. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common symptoms of depression...
• Focus on the past…especially on
ones losses, 4.
• Feeling disturbed, 5
• Sense of despair, 6.
• Feeling “run over,” lack of energy,
7

12. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common symptoms of depression...
• Feeling forgotten…rejected…by
God, 9; 43:2.
• Mourning, 9
• Feelings of “darkness,” 43:3

13. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common Occasions of depression...
• Being taunted, 3.
• Severe losses, 4
• Loss of experiences that caused
joy in the past, 4.
• Separation from “home,” 6

14. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common Occasions of depression...
• Oppression by enemies, 9; 43:2.
• Reviling by enemies, 10.
• Challenges that cannot be
answered, 10.
• Surrounded by ungodliness, 43:1

15. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Common Occasions of depression...
• Being abused by deceitful and
unjust men, 43:1.
• Seeing the godless prospering,
43:2.
• Discomfort that just…continues!

16. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Draw near to God, 1-2.

17. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Analyze WHY you are struggling
with depression, 5.
 Change what you can!
 Seek God’s grace for what you
can’t change!

18. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Stir up your faith in God, 5.

19. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Talk some Biblical sense into
yourself, 5.
Not just a psychological gimmick!
Not just a “power of positive
thinking” “pep talk”!

20. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Fix your hope on God, 5.
• Know that God is your life!, 8.
 Not other people!
 Not your possessions!
 Not your “pleasures”!

21. Dealing with Depression:
PSALM 42-43
Dealing With Depression…
• Pray, 8.
• Know that God is your joy, not
your circumstances!, 43:4.

22. “Whom have I in heaven
but You?
And besides You,
I desire nothing on earth.”
PSALM 73:25

23. Draw near to God!
God is the one who
“comforts us in all our
affliction...
God, Who comforts the
depressed!”
(II Cor. 1:4; 7:6)

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