Gratitude When Your Down

Nov 1, 2026 • Pastor Ray Medina

Gratitude When You’re Down – A Sermon

Series: Gratitude in the Dark

November 1st, 2026

Laguna Niguel Presbyterian Church

INTRO

(SLIDE ONE: Title Slide – Gratitude in the Dark) This month I'm following the Revised Common Lectionary as we move toward Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas.

If you're unfamiliar with it, the Revised Common Lectionary is a three-year cycle of Scripture readings used by many churches. Its purpose is to guide congregations through a broad range of biblical texts while keeping us connected to the seasons of the Christian year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.

I don't always follow the lectionary, but I appreciate the challenge it presents. Left to my own preferences, I would gravitate toward certain passages and themes. The lectionary pushes me beyond those comforts and invites us to hear parts of God's Word that we might otherwise overlook. That's good for both pastor and congregation.

Throughout this month we'll be reading from the Psalms, 1 Thessalonians, and the Gospel of Matthew. The theme I want to draw from these readings is gratitude.

But I'm not talking about gratitude when life is going well, “when the sun is shining down on me and the world’s all that it should be.” I'm talking about gratitude when we're discouraged, delayed, disappointed, desperate, or depressed.

In other words, gratitude in the dark.

To that end, let's listen to Psalm 43.

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

God of Jesus Christ, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, so that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened. Help us to know the hope to which you have called us, the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of your power at work in us. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

PSALM 43

1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from those who are deceitful and unjust, deliver me!

2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off? Why must I walk about mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?

3 O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

GRATITUDE IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES

You probably know that gratitude is good for you.

Studies consistently associate gratitude with greater happiness, stronger relationships, and improved well-being.

You might know that Scripture repeatedly calls God's people to give thanks.

Paul writes to the Philippians:

"Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Phil. 4:6)

And to the Thessalonians:

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thess. 5:18)

But honestly, give thanks in all circumstances? Is that realistic? What if I'm exhausted? What if I'm angry? What if I'm depressed? What if I'm grieving? What if I can't find anything to be thankful for?

What am I to pray, “Thanks God for the rain cloud parked permanently over my head!”?

What does gratitude look like in the dark?

GRATITUDE IN THE DARK

When I use the phrase "in the dark," I'm using it to cover a wide range of feelings and circumstances.

By darkness, I mean those moments when you simply feel down and can't quite explain why.

By darkness, I mean seasons when discouragement settles over your life and refuses to leave.

By darkness, I mean depression. I mean anxiety. I mean grief.

By darkness, I mean those periods when you feel stuck, lost, confused, or exhausted.

And by darkness, I also mean the broader condition of our society.

We live in a moment when mental health has become a major concern. The reasons are complex, and no single explanation is sufficient. Yet it's hard not to notice some of the conditions of modern life that can intensify our struggles: social media, political outrage and propaganda, increasing loneliness, the decline of face-to-face community, distrust of institutions, the constant pace of our lives, and the relentless stream of information competing for our attention.

At the same time, we have developed an increasingly sophisticated psychological vocabulary to describe our experiences. We speak of trauma, anxiety disorders, ADHD, autism, depression, burnout, and a host of other categories to understand ourselves.

I am grateful for the insights of psychology. Good counseling, wise therapy, and appropriate medical care can be gifts from God. They help many people find healing and stability.

But the biblical language of darkness is reaching for something broader and deeper than even our contemporary psychological categories.

Darkness is not merely a diagnosis.Darkness is a spiritual reality.

Darkness is the corruption that works its way into both our souls and our societies.

Darkness is the shadow side of our best days and our best intentions.

Darkness is the chaos we cannot control.

And darkness is also the chaos we ourselves create and unleash.

Darkness is what happens when human beings lose their way.

Darkness is injustice and cruelty. It is alienation and loneliness. It is shame, guilt, resentment, and fear. It is everything in us and around us that resists the good purposes of God.

Most people agree that gratitude is a good habit in general, but the challenge is learning to practice gratitude in the dark.

That's where Psalm 43 meets us.

Full Spectrum of Human Emotion

The writers of the Psalms are not pretending everything is fine. They are not denying reality. They demonstrate the full spectrum of human emotion, giving voice to the discouraged, confused, angry, frightened, lonely, and overwhelmed. They are staring directly into the darkness and learning how to pray there.

Psalm 43 begins with an astonishing prayer:

(SLIDE: Psalm 43:1) "Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people."

This is a cry from someone who feels wronged, misunderstood, and surrounded by people who seem opposed to everything that is good.

I worked on the wait staff of a neighborhood Chili’s as an undergrad student. I was a great waiter. You probably would have guessed that. At the same time, I was also very fresh in my faith. My third year of college, I went through a big turnaround and was suddenly all in for Jesus. Party of my being all in was talking about my faith freely and openly with people like the wait staff at Chili’s. They were some very cool people. I genuinely liked them. But they weren’t particularly into my presentation of Jesus. Looking back, my evangelistic efforts were equal parts admirable and obnoxious. The primary fruit of my ministry was earning the nickname "The God Squad," a label coined by one of the restaurant managers.

I could have handled many of this with a lot more wisdom, patience, and humility. I could have winsomely laughed it off.

I certainly wasn’t being persecuted. But I also remember feeling misunderstood. There were moments, however silly it may sound, where I felt this prayer well up inside me, “Defend my cause, O God, against this baby-back rib loving, God-ignoring wait staff!

There are Psalms that are far more vindictive than this one. These are the kinds of prayers many Christians aren't sure they're allowed to pray. Yet the Psalms are full of them.

We sometimes vent to other people to get things off our chest and blow off steam. This is fine, I suppose, although a whole lot of vice happens under the banner of “venting”. What if we first learned to vent to God? What if we learned to pour out our hearts before God?

WHY MUST I WALK IN THE DARK?

Look at the next verse. The psalm then moves from confidence in God to a lament.

(SLIDE: Psalm 43:2)

"For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off? Why must I walk mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?"

The Hebrew words translated "walk mournfully" can also translate walking around in darkness.

The psalmist feels abandoned.

There is no visible light at the end of the tunnel.

He believes in God, yet he feels forgotten by God.

Many of us know that feeling.

We pray.

We trust.

We keep showing up.

And yet we still find ourselves asking, "Why is this happening? Why does the darkness seem so long?"

The Psalms remind us that faith is not the absence of such questions.

Faith often speaks them aloud.

FILMS WITH HONEST PRAYERS (A3)

Two scenes in films come to mind. In the film the Apostle, the disgraced pastor Sonny has it out with God in the upstairs bedroom of his mother’s house. It's late at night. Sonny is broken, angry, ashamed, and desperate. He paces the floor, shouting and arguing with God at the top of his lungs, carrying on so loudly that the neighbors complain. It is a dramatic scene, but what makes it powerful is its honesty. Sonny is not pretending. He is not cleaning up his emotions before bringing them to God. He simply brings his whole self, confusion and all, into God's presence.

Something similar happens in Forrest Gump. After the war, the wounded and embittered Lieutenant Dan finds himself in the middle of a violent storm, perched high on the mast of a shrimp boat. As the wind howls and the waves crash around him, he screams into the darkness, "Is that all you've got?" He is not speaking to the storm. He is speaking to God.

GRATITUDE FOR THE GOSPEL IN A FALLEN WORLD

For Christians, gratitude is the natural response to the Gospel. Prayers that begin “I thank you, God, for… “are the norm.

And yet receiving the Gospel does not magically remove every trial and tribulation, nor does the Gospel simply erase all our burdens and baggage.

The shadow self of sin and shame persists.

The fallen world of pain and injustice persists.

We become weighed down with inexplicable loss and grief.

We get disappointed with life and with God.

We still experience darkness.

I wouldn’t recommend this as our usual posture before a holy and sovereign God. Yet in this story, Lieutenant Dan’s rage becomes a prayer of raw honesty: he finally voices what has festered in his heart for years.

For both the Apostle and Lt. Dan, honesty becomes a turning point. After the storm comes a kind of peace.

SEND OUR YOUR LIGHT

The turning point of the Psalm comes in verse three.

(SLIDE: PSALM 43:3)

"O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me."

The psalmist asks God for light.

The psalmist asks God for truth.

The psalmist asks for guidance back to God's presence.

The holy hill and dwelling place of God was the temple in Jerusalem built under Solmon’s reign. It was place the thinnest place on planet earth, the place where heaven and earth seemed to meet.

Perhaps this Psalm was written during exile after Jerusalem had been conquered by the Babylonian army and the temple destroyed.

If so, this person's world had collapsed.

The temple was gone.

The homeland was gone.

He’s hundreds of miles away living as an alien in a foreign land.

The future looked impossible.

Yet the psalmist still believes.

God will bring us home.

God will make things right.

God's promises are not finished.

The odds seemed slim.

Yet history tells us those hopes were fulfilled.

The temple was rebuilt.

The people returned.

God was faithful.

And somehow this person can see it before it happens.

That's a vivid portrait of what faith looks especially as we approach the season of Advent – the season when we profess that Christ will coming again. To live as if the light of God’s promised story is true despite the present darkness, that’s amazing faith.

I SHALL AGAIN PRAISE HIM (A)

The Psalm concludes with these famous words:

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God."

Notice the future tense.

The Psalmist doesn't say, "I praise God."

The Psalmist says, "I shall again praise him."

The Psalmist isn't there yet.

The feelings haven't caught up.

The Hebrew word translated "praise" is closely related to giving thanks.

The Psalmist isn't feeling thankful in this moment. He isn't standing on the mountaintop. He isn't celebrating victory.

He's still in the valley.

Yet he believes there is coming a day when his lament will turn to praise.

The Hebrew word translated "praise" is closely connected to thanksgiving. The Psalmist isn't feeling thankful in this moment. He isn't standing on the mountaintop. He isn't celebrating victory. He's still in the valley.

That is gratitude in the dark – not felt thanksgiving but anticipated thanksgiving.

DUBLIN, IRELAND 1974

And that kind of hope reminds me of a young teenager growing up in Ireland.

In Dublin and Monaghan, Ireland, in 1974, three car bombs exploded, killing thirty-three people and injuring hundreds more. One of the bombs exploded near a café where a teenager named Paul Hewson often spent time. On that particular day, because of a bus strike, he had ridden his bicycle home and narrowly missed the carnage.

The experience left a deep mark on him.

Four months later, his mother collapsed and died at her own father's funeral.

Imagine being a teenager and carrying that much grief, confusion, and loss.

Life had become very dark.

Yet around that same time Paul began exploring the Christian faith through an older friend named Guggi. He became captivated by Scripture and by the possibility that God might actually care about the details of his life.

He also saw a notice posted on a school wall:

"Drummer seeks musicians for band."

Faith, friendship, and music became lifelines.

Music became his vocation.

And Paul Hewson eventually became known to the world as Bono, the lead singer of U2.

Bono’s lyrics, like the Psalms, give voice to a faith still full of laments and questions. In one of U2’s biggest hits, Bono opines, “I have climbed the highest mountains. I have run through the fields, only to be with you… But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”. He could be talking a relationship gone wrong, or he could be talking about God.

Neither Psalm 43 nor Bono's lyrics answer the deepest questions we often ask:

Why is there darkness?

Why do innocent people suffer?

Why do wars rage?

Why does depression linger?

Why do some wounds seem to last a lifetime?

The Psalms don't offer a philosophical explanation for every kind of suffering.

Instead, they teach us how to pray in the midst of suffering.

They teach us how to hope before circumstances change.

They teach us how to trust God when the answers don't come.

They teach us to say:

"Why are you cast down, O my soul?"