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Illustration for Psalm 43: Send Out Your Light

Psalm 43

Send Out Your Light

ComfortWhen AfraidPraise

The writer asks God to send His light and truth to guide him, like a lamp lighting up a dark path. He wants to be led back to God's holy mountain where he can praise and worship. Three times he tells himself: 'Put your hope in God!'

  1. 1Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.
  2. 2For You are God, my stronghold. Why have You rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?
  3. 3Send forth Your light and Your truth; let them guide me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell.
  4. 4Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and delight. I will praise You with the harp, O God, my God.
  5. 5Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.

What it means

When everything feels dark and confusing, we can ask God to send His light and His truth to show us the way. Notice that the writer talks to himself three times, telling his own sad heart to put its hope in God. You are allowed to do that too — remind yourself who God is, even on a day when you don't feel it.

A little prayer

God, some things feel dark and I'm not sure which way to go. Send me Your light and Your truth to lead me. When my heart feels heavy, help me remember that I can still put my hope in You. Amen.

Memory verse

“Send forth Your light and Your truth; let them guide me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell.”

Psalm 43:3 (BSB)

A short prayer for direction that fits in a pocket.

Talk about it

Questions with no single right answer — for a family table or a Sunday-school circle.

  1. The psalm asks God to send out His light and truth as guides. What would a guide made of light be like?
  2. It uses the same refrain as Psalm 42. Why repeat yourself in a prayer?
  3. The writer wants to get back to a place where he felt close to God. Is there a place like that for you?
  4. What is one true thing you could hold on to this week?

Try this

Follow the light

Turn the lights off. One person holds a torch and leads the others through the house without speaking, using only the beam. Talk about how much of the room you needed to see.

You will need: A torch.

Scripture from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB)