This Sunday, Ryan will be back in the pulpit preaching from Psalm 42 and 43, two psalms with several familiar lines. For example, 42:1 reads, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

But if you read these two psalms together you’ll notice a refrain repeated three times, in 42:5, 42:11, and 43:5.

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.

The psalmist asks a good question. And he gives himself a good answer. Of course, we all need to do this kind of thing. Perhaps you would write this down on a note card and keep it near you from now through Sunday.