7/3/25 Daily Devotion: When You Just Don't Feel It

Psalms 42:1-8 - “1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. 5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”

Sometimes we just don’t feel it. We get in prolonged seasons of trial & tribulation, seemingly never ending periods of want & struggle, challenging pains over & over & over again … we believe in our God but we are struggling hard just to SEE HIM.

• Read Psalm 42 this morning … does it feel familiar? Are you panting for God as a deer does water? Have your tears seemingly been your only sustenance for as long as you can remember?

What does God want us to do when we just don’t feel it?

Pour out our souls TO HIM.

• It is OK to have doubts, fears, sorrows, longings, desires & struggles … but what do you do with them? Where do you go with them?

• God says “Pour out your souls TO ME.”

• Talk to Him … really, honestly, transparently talk to Him. You don’t need to perform for Him … just be real WITH HIM.

• We are tempted to find other outlets for our issues … taking them to friends or family or therapists or the internet INSTEAD OF our Father God.

• We pour out our souls to God because the TRUTH is that He is what our soul longs for! Recognizing that it is Him that our soul is panting for helps us actually go TO HIM with our struggles.

REMEMBER Him.

• REMEMBER when you were aware of His Loving Presence. REMEMBER when He saved you. REMEMBER the times in your story that you have experienced Him. REMEMBER times of celebration & worship.

• You can help yourself remember by setting up reminders throughout your life of times that God showed up. The Israelites would build altars to remind themselves & future generations of how God provided for their needs … you can do this too! A picture or trinket on a shelf, a note in a journal, a keepsake in a special drawer … remind yourself to REMEMBER HIM.

Hold yourself to the standard of TRUTH.

• When your soul is cast down and in turmoil … REMIND YOUR SELF OF GOD’s TRUTH.

• You can (and should!) question your own feelings! Why are you cast down? Why are you depressed and in turmoil? HOPE IN GOD my soul!

• God is LOVE. God is FAITHFUL. If we KNOW that to be TRUTH … our cast down & turmoiled soul has wandered away from TRUSTING HIM.

• Remind yourself self that God is WITH YOU. Remind your self that God LOVES YOU. Remind your self that God is FOR YOUR GOOD.

Feeling down? Go to Him. Remember Him. Trust Him.