Psalm 6 (Summer of Psalms #2)

Many years ago, in the first couple of years of planting Riverwood, I was struggling with depression. There were days I was certain Riverwood was not going to make it — that I was a failure, that nobody liked me, that the dream was dead.

As the church grew and stabilized, I began coming out of that funk. I was maturing spiritually, and I reached a point where I could admit what I had gone through instead of hiding it. So one Sunday, in a sermon, I said it out loud.

Afterward a couple of people thanked me, because of their own mental health battles, and it meant something to them that I would say it publicly. But one woman — fairly new, maybe three or four Sundays in, still deciding whether this would be her church — came up not to thank me but to gently rebuke me.

According to her, admitting I had faced depression was a sin. Jesus came to give us abundant life, John 10:10. Jesus died on the cross. Depression is a result of sin. Therefore, once we put our faith in Jesus, there should be no more depression, no more anxiety — and giving in to those things is wrong. We ought to be declaring victory over them instead.

She did not say the rest out loud, but the implication was clear enough: You are not a very good follower of Jesus, let alone a pastor. I cannot believe you taught that to your family. You need to be teaching positive thinking and faith-filled living.

If Psalm 100 Were the Only Psalm

Here is the thing — if Psalm 100 were the only psalm in the Bible, she would have a decent argument. Jake showed us so expertly last week that we approach God in worship with thanksgiving, joy, and gladness, humbly declaring who He is, because verse 5 says God is good and His steadfast love endures forever. That is true. Even in the middle of our struggles, God is still good and His love still reigns.

But Psalm 100 is not the only psalm. There are 150 of them, and some have a very different tone. Some are raw. Gritty. Messy. Some say genuinely shocking things. They never deny the goodness of God — but they do acknowledge the reality of emotional pain and distress on this earth.

Psalm 6 is one of those.

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? — Psalm 6:1–3 (ESV)

The superscript tells us this was written for the choirmaster, accompanied by stringed instruments, “according to the Sheminith” — some Hebrew musical term none of us can define with confidence. And it tells us who wrote it: David.

Psalm 6 is a psalm of lament. There are 48 individual laments and 15 corporate ones — 63 of the 150. That means 42% of the Psalms are lament. And reading this one, David’s emotions are not gently leaking out. They are gushing like water from a fire hose.

These God-inspired words give us a glimpse into David’s heart — and they teach us three things about emotions.

1. Emotions Affect Our Mind

Verse 6: “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.” If you have been through depression, you understand David completely.

Many of you know I swim for exercise. If you have done lap swimming you know you need goggles, and you know that eventually water gets into them — the rubber degrades, or they shift when you push off, and it is maddening because you have to stop and reseal them.

During my depression, I still do not know how, but I would get myself to the pool and get my workout in. Then I would sink down, kick off the wall, and in that silence my brain would start going. You are a failure. This is not going to work. Why is God not helping? And my goggles would fill with water — not pool water. Tears.

That is verse 6. He is in so much pain that these emotions are playing whack-a-mole with his mind.

2. Emotions Affect Our Body

That first one surprises nobody. But look at verse 2: “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing.” I got curious about that word and checked other translations — weak, faint, frail, and one that reads I am pining away. David is saying he feels this physically. Which is why the second half of the verse says, “Heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.”

Science has spent the last several decades catching up to these ancient words. We are not just talking about a stress headache. People going through serious anxiety or depression feel it in their muscles. Hormones go out of balance. Heart palpitations. Chest pain. Nausea. They cannot eat. The immune system weakens. They cannot sleep, or they sleep far too much. Everything is out of whack.

3. Emotions Affect Our Being

And if you have been where David is, it does not stop at mind and body. It seeps into your very soul.

Verse 3: “My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord — how long?” Verse 1 is his mind. Verse 2 is his body. Verse 3 is the core of who he is. Which is why verse 4 says, “Turn, O Lord, deliver my life.”

It is possible he means deliver him from the evil men mentioned in verses 8 and 10 — read 1 and 2 Samuel and you will find political leaders who were not merely being unkind, they were actively trying to kill him. But the way the sentence is built, I think he is asking to be delivered from these emotions, because he feels them at the very core of who he is.

Part of why I say that is how verse 3 ends. “But you, O Lord” — and then he just stops. He is at a loss for words. All he can get out is: How long? How long must I endure this? How long do I wait for you to answer?

“But David Lived Before the Cross”

The woman who rebuked me might say: David wrote this before Jesus. He did not know about the death and resurrection. We live on the other side of it, so these things should be healed — no more depression for the Christian, no more anxiety for the follower of Jesus.

If that is true, explain 2 Corinthians 1. Paul writes to the church at Corinth: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.”

Paul is saying the weight was so heavy it did not only affect their minds or their bodies — it reached their souls. They despaired of life itself.

So if you follow Jesus, hear this: you are not a failure. If you have battled depression or anxiety or overwhelming worry, you are not rejected and you are not unloved. God is still with you when you cannot get out of bed. God is still for you when you are avoiding every conversation. God is still with you when you are crying into your goggles.

But I do not think God says “I see your pain” and leaves us there. My rebuking friend was right about one thing: the cross is for these things. There is a way through. It is just that the way through is not denial — it is learning to process them.

I see two mistakes, and I have made both. One is to stuff it — ignore it, refuse to name it, act like everything is great. How are you doing? Fine. The other is to embrace the emotion so completely that you identify with it, and now it runs you. Neither is healthy.

Psalm 6 gives us a simple, powerful three-step path instead.

Step One: Acknowledge Your Emotions

God will not heal what you will not feel. If you pretend these emotions are not in your life, there will be no healing. The question to attach here is simply: What is going on? What am I feeling?

For some of you that is not natural — your instinct is to push it away and hide it. That was mine for the longest time. I think sometimes we do it because we assume emotions are sin. They are not. Emotions can become sinful, but emotion itself is not sin. How do I know? Because God has emotions. Scripture shows Him expressing joy, anger, grief — He knows the full gamut. And we are made in His image, so it should not surprise us that we are emotional beings.

Men, a word. We are not as naturally good at this as the women in our lives. I am speaking in stereotypes — I have known women who shut their emotions down and men who are quite expressive — but studies consistently show, globally and not just in America, that men suppress and women express.

You can see it in our emotional vocabulary. A man’s is roughly a pamphlet. Six words. How are you doing? Fine. Good. A little down. That is most of them. Ask a woman and you get: “I am doing fantastic, and let me tell you why. I have been really concerned about Johnny, and I feel burdened by it, so I have been praying. And I am anxious about this job interview because I really want it.” A multi-volume encyclopedia. In fact, one study I came across this week found women use twice as many emojis as men. Our favorites number about six, and one of them is almost certainly the poop emoji.

That is fine — God wired most women to be more expressive. But we men use it as an excuse not to acknowledge what we feel. We suppress it and man up, because showing emotion reads as weakness.

So men, consider who wrote Psalm 6. King David. A warrior. A teenager who fought lions and bears to protect his sheep. A kid who walked onto a battlefield against a nine-foot giant with a sling and a stone. A man who became king and had his own personal army — thirty mighty men who would have done anything for him. A leader of leaders. If David walked into modern America, I think the Old Spice guy would simply resign and hand it over. And if David can acknowledge what he feels, so can we.

Now, women, a word for you too. I used to assume that because women are more in tune with their emotions, they would welcome the men in their lives opening up — husbands, dads, sons, coworkers, friends. It turns out I was wrong.

Culturally right now, many women have absorbed the idea that a man showing emotion is weak, and what they want is a strong man. Months ago I saw a thread about exactly this — I have tried and failed to find it again — posted, I believe, by a psychologist. One clip was from a dating show. One of the men had just learned his grandmother died, and he teared up. It looked healthy to me; she clearly mattered to him. Then in one of those side interviews, a woman on the show said, “When he started to cry, I got the ick.” His grandmother died, and she read it as weakness.

Later in the thread was a clip from a Brené Brown talk. She tells about a family at one of her book signings. She signed books for the wife and daughters, and as they walked off the husband hung back and said, “Quick question. I love your books, but all your illustrations are about women. Have you done any research on men?” She said no — she studies shame and vulnerability, and only in women. He looked at her and said, “Oh. That’s convenient.” She was stunned. Then he said: it is not the dads and the coaches and the other guys who are hardest on me. It is the women in my life. And if I fall off my white horse, I hear about it.

So — are you creating space where the men in your life can name what they are feeling? They may not do it your way, or at your depth, or on your timeline. But will you make it safe for them to at least say here is what I am feeling? Because if you do not, you are keeping them from health they need.

Step Two: Own Your Emotions

Owning your emotions does not mean being controlled by them. It is the opposite: as you own them, you understand them, and they lose their grip on you.

If step one asks what am I feeling, step two asks why am I feeling what I am feeling?

Often the answer is obvious. I lost my job — no wonder I am down. A huge medical bill arrived and I do not know how we will pay it. A close friend said something harsh. For David, verses 8 and 10 name men working evil who wanted him dead. That would make me pretty down too.

But sometimes you can name the feeling and have no idea why it is there. That is when you go to prayer. James 1:5 tells us that when we lack wisdom, we ask God for it. So ask: Father, is this because of some sin I am unaware of? Is this something from my childhood I have been ignoring? Have I been believing a lie you are trying to correct?

Sometimes God gives that wisdom through His word — so even when you are struggling emotionally and it is affecting you spiritually, do not run from God. Run to Him. Sometimes He does it in surprising ways: a lyric, a moment in a film, something overheard, a whisper from the Holy Spirit in prayer.

But most often He uses other people. Is there a good friend you need to have coffee with and say, “Here is what I am struggling with, and I do not know why”? Maybe it is a mentor. Maybe a Christian counselor. Maybe there is a medical component and you need to see a doctor. And at any point, reach out to me, or to Matt, or to Ed — as elders we are here to shepherd this church family. We may not fully understand what you are facing, but if God can speak through a donkey in the book of Numbers, He can speak through us. At minimum we will pray with you, pray for you, and cheer you on.

Step Three: Surrender Your Emotions

This is the most important one, and David does it in verse 8: “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.”

He has come before God, acknowledged exactly what he feels and why, and surrendered all of it. And because God is good and His steadfast love endures forever, David knows He is present, at work in him and around him, and will bring him out of this dark stretch.

This is not a magic cure. Notice the psalm does not end with everything fixed — you can still feel that David feels what he feels. It is that in the middle of the darkness there is now a spark of hope, because he surrendered it to the Lord.

Gospel Your Emotions

You have one advantage over David. He surrendered knowing God is good, based on what he learned from his ancestors and what God had done in his own life. You have all of that — and you also have the gospel. Sin entered the world to ruin everything God made; Christ entered it to restore and reset it. So when we surrender our emotions, what we are really doing is letting the gospel seep into every crevice of the soul.

Here is what that looks like for me. The emotion I have wrestled with since childhood and into adulthood is not loneliness exactly, but a sense of unworthiness and rejection — that people simply do not like me.

I can acknowledge that is what I feel. And I know it is not true. God blessed me with amazing parents who have supported me my whole life. I have an amazing wife who has been on board 110% through a ministry journey that has taken us from Venezuela to Colorado to Cedar Rapids and now to Waverly, Iowa. On Sunday mornings, at elder meetings, at team meetings — I know I am liked. I know I fit here. So I know the thought is a lie.

And it still creeps up. Erin, nobody likes you. If you were a good preacher, your church would be three times the size. If people liked you, you would be invited into more. If you were any good, all of this would be going better.

Some of it traces back to being smaller than most of my classmates and getting picked on. At my school the star athletes stood out, and I was not one. I made the mistake of getting good grades, which was apparently a serious offense. I also had a girl’s first name. And a last name that rhymes with “nerd” and “turd.” And it has not only been childhood rejections — there have been plenty in adulthood that landed the same way.

That is exactly where the gospel has to seep in. Because while others may reject me, God fully accepts me — I can see that at the cross. And where I feel like a failure, God says otherwise — I can see that in the resurrection. As I let the gospel into every part of me and surrender it all to Him, I get that spark of hope.

I suspect if David had written Psalm 6 after the cross, he would not have changed much — he would still name his emotions honestly. He would just have pointed to Jesus at the end. I think that because it is exactly what Paul did.

Back in 2 Corinthians 1, I stopped short of the best part. After saying they despaired of life itself, Paul continues: “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

Paul is saying: we were affected mentally, physically, and down to our very being — and God allowed it so we would rely on Him. But notice how he describes God. The one who raises the dead. That is Paul gospeling his emotions. He looks at the resurrection and concludes: if God can raise His Son from the dead, He can get me through this.

And that is the spark of hope — for Paul, for David, and for you. When that ray of gospel light shines into the darkness of your soul, you remember that you are not alone. God is with you. He is for you. He is working around you. He will bring you through.

And you will find yourself turning from a Psalm 6 lament into a Psalm 100 praise.