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Mid-century illustration of a shepherd's staff resting against a stone in still water

Psalms 43:5 · World English Bible

Psalms 43:5 Meaning Why Are You in Despair

Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him: my Savior, my helper, and my God.

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What does Psalms 43:5 mean?

The question repeats because the sadness returns. The repeating is honest.

From the Ego v. Being reading below.

Psalms 43:5 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

EGO & BEING

Ego v. Being

The question repeats because the sadness returns. The repeating is honest. A person does not fix the mind once and finish. Each time the heaviness rolls in, the same small miracle waits: the self hears its own unrest and, in hearing it, is no longer only the unrest.

That gap between the sorrow and the one who notices it is where freedom lives. Hope set in God is attention resting in the depth that weather cannot reach. Praise returns on its own, later, when the face lightens. Underneath every passing state, a still awareness holds, closer to a person than the mood ever was.

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Ego v. Being lens

Live Psalms 43:5 today

  1. When the same low feeling comes around again today, skip being annoyed that it is back. Just see it, name it, and let it keep moving.
  2. If someone brings you the same worry for the fifth time, stay as patient as you were the first time. Repetition is how people are, not a failure.
  3. In a long, draining day, come back to your breath whenever you remember, even twenty times. Each return counts, and forgetting between them is fine.

Can you come back to yourself without being irritated that you wandered off?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · mindfulness

Feelings keep arriving, and the practice is not to stop them but to meet each one again as it comes. The meeting is what frees you, not the ending.

Zen proverb

Fall down seven times, stand up eight. The standing up is the practice, as many times as it takes.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Return to yourself as often as you drift. The way back is always short, however many times you take it.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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