Part 1 of an Interview with George Robertson, Author of Soul Anatomy

How do you worship when you’re depressed? Where do you find words to express inexpressible joy? What do you pray when you need hope? In Soul Anatomy: Finding Peace, Hope, and Joy in the Psalms, George Robertson offers a biblical guide for working through emotional turmoil in a gospel-centered way.   Each chapter examines an individual Psalm for deeper study of the themes of peace, joy, rest, anxiety, depression, justice, God’s presence, and others. Robertson guides readers in how to listen for Jesus’s voice while walking through the hardest things of life and points them to Jesus’s humanity and divinity as they pray the Psalms along with him. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter make this an effective resource for both individual use and small group discussion. Part 1 of an Interview with George Robertson, Author of Soul Anatomy Q: Tells us a little bit about your book, Soul Anatomy and where the inspiration for the title came from.   Soul Anatomy comes from my calling and a conviction. It comes from my calling as a pastor. Over the past 30 years of ministry, I have walked with people through a multitude of life circumstances that tap into the deepest recesses of the soul. While there is no one way to approach every person, every person does need to see that scripture is relevant to their situation because it leads them to Jesus, the ultimate supply for all our needs. John Calvin called the psalter “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.” He meant that the Psalms enable us to understand our own souls in the midst of life’s circumstances and to bring our souls to God for his grace.   The book also comes from a conviction to lead God’s people to respond to God in all of the ways the psalmist does. Soul Anatomy primarily addresses five of those ways: The Psalms invite us to understand ourselves—in all our ups and downs—in the light of God’s true reality The Psalms increase our boldness in prayer The Psalms give voice to our deepest griefs and show us a way to rightly process our suffering As poetic expressions of the faith, they ground us in life-changing theology They grow us in community; they show the church how to live together and how to care for one another. Q: You have written and preached sermons on each and every one of the 150 psalms, so you most certainly have an affinity for this particular book of the Bible. Why is Psalms your favorite book to preach?   That’s right—I have preached through the Psalms twice and hope to be able to do it again! One of the reasons I love to preach through the Psalms comes from something I experienced the first time I did it. After almost every sermon, someone would come up to me and say, “That’s my psalm!” They meant God had used that Psalm to remind them who he was in some particular season in their life, and they had internalized that psalm in such a way that it was immensely personal to them.   Another experience from the first time I preached through the Psalms was an internal conflict. Preaching through portions of scripture that are packed with emotional experience and language meant I had to learn how to become transparent with my people about my own struggles with anxiety and depression. At first, I thought those experiences were shameful, but the Holy Spirit eventually taught me how to share those experiences in such a way that I was simply pointing people to the place where I had found the supply for my own need.   Q: How did you pick only twenty-five to delve into in Soul Anatomy? What are some of the ones that you chose?   It was certainly a challenge to choose just twenty-five. Spurgeon calls it a “Treasury” for a reason. I tried to select Psalms based on two factors. First, I selected psalms that have been of special meaning to me in my own times of distress. Second, I selected psalms that cover the whole gamut of emotional experiences.   For instance, Psalm 1 shows us the path to living a truly happy and blessed life. In other words, it shows us wisdom. Psalm 22 shows us how to lament in the hope of Jesus’ victory. Psalm 51 shows us how to repent when we’ve sinned against God and other people. Psalm 73 shows us what it looks like to have our perspective realigned when we become disillusioned. Psalms 129, 137, and 140 show us how to process our anger in a righteous way. And Psalm 139 humbles us as it shows us the depth of God’s love for us.   Q: Why should we pray the prayers in Psalms as our own? What are some examples of prayers we should be praying?   One important reason we should do this is because it shows us how to legitimize painful life experiences and rely on God to sustain us through them. We can tend to form an unhealthy division between our feelings and our faith. We can dismiss feelings in ourselves and others by appealing to the truth. While it is right to apply the truth of scripture to all of life, the Psalms show us that we are not called to be unemotional creatures. We can both express our feelings, because we have a God who has moved heaven and earth to show his love for us, and also move forward in faith. There is a line in Psalm 42:5 where the psalmist says,                     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.   In his sermon on this text, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said Christians have to learn to “talk to themselves,” to “take their souls in hand” and exhort them to hope in their Savior. That’s dealing realistically with ourselves. It is fully to acknowledge our emotional struggle while vocalizing our only help is in Christ as it has been for all generations.   Q: Share with us why Psalm 23 is both the most loved but least believed psalm.   I would sum it up like this: As Christians, we all live with a kind of “redemptive amnesia.” As often as God provides our needs and as dramatically as he provides them, we are all prone to forget and fall back into fear and anxiety when we face adverse circumstances. Psalm 23 gives us the promise of God’s total protection and provision for us, and we return to it again and again as we forget.   Psalm 23 also counters our natural caricature of God as an impersonal, distant, and exacting force. However, in the 23rd God identifies himself as a shepherd (the most despised of professions), who walks with us through every valley, and whose goodness and mercy accompany us forever.   Q: What are some of the promises we can find rest in as revealed through the psalms?   I will mention two here. Psalm 36:9 says, “In your light do we see light.” The greatest benefit of studying the Psalms is that we come to a greater understanding of who God is. As the creator of the universe, it makes sense that understanding God better would help us to understand life better. One promise we can find rest in is that knowing and relating to God more helps us make sense of life’s sometimes perplexing realities and how we should live in response.   Another promise that has perhaps more acute relevance lately is the promise that God cares about the oppressed and is passionate about bringing justice. People often find the imprecatory psalms (that is, psalms in which the writer asks God to bring judgment on the wicked) surprising and even offensive. One thing we learn from them, however, is that God is a just God. We cannot pray those prayers without a serious examination of our own hearts. We also cannot pray those prayers without seeing that God will do justice on earth. For victims of injustice and those distressed at the many instances of injustice they see, that is a promise in which we can find rest.   Learn more about George Robertson at www.2pc.org/soul-anatomy/.  Soul Anatomy: Finding Peace, Hope, and Joy in the Psalms by George Robertson October 5, 2020 / Retail Price: $17.99 Print ISBN 978-1-645070-38-2 Religion/Christian Living/Spiritual Growth Click here for a preview, including the table of contents, introduction, and first chapter. About the author George Robertson, PhD, is the senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN, and a council member for The Gospel Coalition. He previously served as a lecturer and adjunct professor at Covenant Theological Seminary.   Robertson is the author of Soul Anatomy: Finding Peace, Hope, and Joy in the Psalms. He has devoted much attention to the study and application of the Psalms throughout his career, preaching from them over 150 times and contributing the notes for Psalms 1-100 in the ESV Gospel Transformation Bible. The book relays both the depths of his personal experience with depression and anxiety as well as daily pastoral care over the past 25 years.   He is married to Jackie, and they have four children.   Learn more about George Robertson at www.2pc.org/soul-anatomy/.