Downcast?

Psalm 44:5
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 and my God.

As I grow older in the faith, I am more and more aware of the depth of my sin. I see the myriad ways that I fail my Lord daily...both in the sins of commission and omission. I am easily distracted, discouraged, and turned aside from Him. As I learn more of Him, I see how high and holy His standard is, and how far short I fall. To dwell on it leads to despair. This is why we must hear the Gospel weekly, and why we must wake up each morning and preach it to ourselves. The Enemy wants us to be downcast, discouraged. He wants us to lose our sight of what Christ has done for us. He wants us to think that our very existence is futile. Yet because of the Gospel, we can truly praise God in the midst of our struggles with sin and the adversities of life.

If there is one thing we have strived for in the posts of this blog, it is to articulate the Gospel of Christ. He came from heaven to earth, not to "show the way", but to be the Way of our salvation. He is the Way to God because he fulfilled all the demands of God's holiness on our behalf. He went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sin. By God's grace, and through faith in Christ, His very righteousness is imputed to us, and our sin has been nailed to the cross...once and for all. Through His Spirit He dwells within us, teaching us obedience and gratitude, and adopting us as His children. When we fail, he is there to forgive. And one day, he will grant eternal life to those who believe, in renewed spiritual bodies that will never die. When we are downcast, yet can we praise him...for he has granted us His mercy and grace!

But here there are two evils specified, which, however apparently different, yet assail our hearts at the same time; the one is discouragement, and the other disquietude. When we are quite downcast, we are not free of a feeling of disquietude, which leads us to murmur and complain. The remedy to both of them is here added, hope in God, which alone inspires our minds, in the first place, with confidence in the midst of the greatest troubles; and, secondly, by the exercise of patience, preserves them in peace. In what follows, David very well expresses the power and nature of hope by these words, I shall yet praise him; for it has the effect of elevating our thoughts to the contemplation of the grace of God, when it is hidden from our view. Nor is this an imaginary expectation produced by a fanciful mind; but, relying upon the promises of God, he not only encourages himself to cherish good hope, but also promises himself certain deliverance. We can only be competent witnesses to our brethren of the grace of God when, in the first place, we have borne testimony to it to our own hearts... By this example, therefore, we are admonished, that although Satan, by his assaults, often subjects us to a renewal of the same trouble, we ought not to lose our courage, or allow ourselves to be cast down.
- JOHN CALVIN