The Psalms can be incredibly uplifting but they can also remind you of how tough life can be. There’s a lorry-load of lament packed into the 150 chapters and number 42 was the starting point for this song.

The songs that God gives us through the struggles and trials become the prayers that enable us to keep going. Being a Christian is not all celebration, it’s more of a marathon than a sprint.

The good news that Jesus brought is that you don’t have to have it all together to enjoy a relationship with him. He called the outcasts and those shunned by society to follow him.

The Message puts a little of Psalm 42 like this

When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse

everything I know of you,

From Jordan depths to Hermon heights,

including Mount Mizar.

Chaos calls to chaos,

to the tune of whitewater rapids.

Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers

crash and crush me.

Then God promises to love me all day,

sing songs all through the night!

My life is God’s prayer.

When the world is against you, praise changes the atmosphere. It enables you to stand up and pull yourself together in times of crisis.

It’s easy to be downcast, focusing on the difficulties, and feel crushed by the weight of our struggles, forgetting the God who is all-powerful and eternally able to do immeasurably more than we can imagine.

This is why praise is a weapon of warfare!

Praise causes us to look up, to turn our eyes upon the Living God and recognise that though we are mortal, He is immortal; though our trouble seem significant, He is all powerful.

The common pattern in The Psalms is ‘life is hard but I will praise You anyway’. And so, our words are a prayer to the Living God and His tune strikes a chord in our troubled hearts.

May we not forget that today, whatever we face.

Written by Andy Baker