Contrary to some popular preachers, you can’t live your best life now. You’re actually living your worst life now.

Can you imagine a manuscript titled Your Worst Life Now? Any editor or publisher consider that proposal an epic fail in marketing strategy. It’s too negative! It’s too pessimistic! But it’s only too true. What you’re living now as a Christian in this broken world absolutely, positively is your worst life now.

This good life is as bad as it gets for the believer. When we die and go to heaven, that life will be a whole lot better. And when Christ returns and makes all things new, that life will be by far the best! But a book titled Your Best Life Won’t Be Until Christ Returns or Your Worst Life Now won’t sell well.

Psalm 42 reflects the reality of living in a broken world while reminding us of the hope we have for the future. Life is hard, but believers have hope.

This first psalm in Book Two of the Psalter begins with a literary image of a thirsty deer (Psalm 42:1 & 2, ESV):

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

We envision a deer that has run hard and far, its tongue hangs from its panting mouth as it stumbles and searches for a refreshing stream. The deer has run from a threat, perhaps pursued by hunters or a predator.

Just as that thirsty deer pants for the refreshing water that will restore its vigor, our souls often thirst for the living God. He alone can refresh our spirits. People or events often seem to conspire in stealing our joy.

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”
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 (3 & 4, ESV).

When people mock our faith or we feel alienated from other believers, it’s as though we subsist only on our tears. Food and drink have lost their taste. Christian joy disappears. Glad worship is only a memory. We pour out our souls in weeping and prayer.  We become depressed and anxious. Our souls are cast down.

We feel the force of God’s bitter providence surging over us like the drowning power of a relentless undercurrent beneath a roaring waterfall or a breaking wave.

Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me (7, ESV).

But even when we feel abandoned or oppressed, God remains with us (8-10, ESV):

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?” 

We may cry out to God from pain-filled hearts, we may feel that we are fatally wounded, but God is with us in our loneliness and persecution. Since God never leaves or forsakes us, why should our souls be cast down?

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.

When cares and concerns bring down joy or flare up fear, we can remind ourselves that we don’t need to be depressed or afraid. Yes, we live in a world full of pain. Feeling despair or anxiety is normal, but it isn’t necessary.

There’s no need to wallow in an emotional slough when we can climb out by clinging to the rungs of hope. Our hope in God is sure. He may work out deliverance sooner or better than you think. God is your loving Father, your equipping Spirit, and your redeeming Christ. You will praise him again. Maybe not as much as you’d like in this life, but certainly more than you can imagine in the next.

This present reality is your worst life now. Your bliss in heaven with him will be better. Your future glory at Christ’s return will be best.

Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God!