Read: Psalm 42
Why are you cast down, O my soul? (v. 5)
One Christmas, my daughter set her heart on a specific gift. She heard rumors that the item was selling out everywhere. Unbeknownst to her, my wife and I had already ordered the item. As Christmas approached, my daughter expressed increasing worry about receiving the hoped-for gift. Every time, I said simply, “You have to trust that Mom and I are going to make it a good Christmas.” I was asking her to place her hope less in the gift and more in her relationship with us, the givers.
Psalm 42 expresses the kind of longing and grief associated with earthly disappointment. As life progresses, a child’s worry over Christmas presents gives way to deeper grief over more devastating losses: unrequited love, missed job opportunities, financial worries, aging and illness and death. In this world, nearly every hoped-for, good gift eventually goes away.
The author of Psalm 42 equips us to face this reality while redirecting our hope. We may not achieve or receive every good thing we hope for. We may one day lose whatever good thing we’re enjoying right now. But when we are downcast and disappointed, we can rest assured: behind every good and perfect gift is a good and perfect giver—our heavenly Father (James 1:17). During the season of Advent, shift your focus from the gifts that may or may not appear, or the good times you may or may not enjoy. Put your hope in God, the giver of all good gifts.
As you pray, thank your heavenly Father for attending to your needs.
Ben Van Arragon is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After twenty years of congregational ministry, he now serves his denomination as a pastor wellbeing consultant in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
