“O [El Sali],” I cry,
Psalm 42:9
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I wander around in grief,
oppressed by my enemies?”
El Sali: God My Strength (or God My Rock)
Psalm 42 has long been the comfort of drooping souls. “Why am I so discouraged?” “Why is my soul so sad?” David repeats these questions as though they are looping in his mind. This is a man who is low, and he can’t shake it. He feels abandoned, alone, lifeless; I have felt these things too recently, even today. And yet in the midst of this, he calls God El Sali – “God My Strength.” Because he knows. He knows none of his successes ever came from himself; they were all done in strength beyond his own. So he rallies – and again, he puts his hope where it belongs, in El Sali, in his Rock Himself.
