In his work on religious affections (desires & emotions of the will), Jonathan Edwards asserts, “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections” Unfortunately, not all affections are as enjoyable as the one’s we have looked at so far. Life in a fallen world leads us to legitimate sorrow and melancholy at times. What does it look like to express these kinds of emotions in a way that honors the Lord?

This Week
Let’s look at Psalm 6 and the expression of sorrow that the Psalmist expresses here.

Psalm 6

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath.
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;
heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is greatly troubled.
But you, O Lord—how long?

Turn, O Lord, deliver my life;
save me for the sake of your steadfast love.
For in death there is no remembrance of you;
in Sheol who will give you praise?

I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
My eye wastes away because of grief;
it grows weak because of all my foes.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my plea;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled;
they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.

A lot about dealing with sorrow and pain can be learned from the Psalms. David gives us two important insights in Psalm 6.

1. We should express our sorrow openly and honestly before the Lord.

This can be seen all over the Psalms. We aren’t meant to hold in our sorrow. God has given us much of the Psalms so we can recognize that He longs for us to bring our pain and sorrow to Him. Rather than trying to sort through it on his own, David goes to God in brutal honesty. He’s in deep despair. We’ve all had those moments in our lives when it seems like all hope is lost. Whether all of our friends have seemingly turned their backs on us, or we don’t know how we are going to pay our bills that are piling up, or we can’t even pin down the things that are depressing us, God wants us to lay those things down before Him.

2. We can combat sorrow by expressing it and reminding ourselves of God’s character.

Bringing our sorrows to God is the first step in combating it. The mere act of bringing our sorrows to God is an expression of faith, no matter how weak we may feel it is. It’s a trust that God is the only one that can possibly bear it. But let’s not stop there. We must seek to remind ourselves who God is: gracious (v. 2), loving (v. 4), listening (vv. 8-10). The Holy Spirit works through reminders of God’s character especially as we see them in His Word, and He begins to build our faith and restore our joy.

Our sorrow may not go away overnight, but the greatest truth in all this is that God will ultimately wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4) by the work Jesus did on the cross. May we find hope in the Gospel even in the midst of our sorrows.