“As the deer pants for the water brook, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2a).
Dear Praying Friends:
Deep depression has gripped the psalmist. He cries day and night. Mocked by his unbelieving neighbors, he feels forgotten, even abandoned, by God, despite his ardent longing to join his fellow pilgrims and appear before the Lord in his tabernacle, as he used to do.
Instead, he feels as if waves and billows from God are crashing down upon his head and overwhelming him in a flood.
Perhaps all of us have experienced such emotions at one time or another. Bitter disappointment, chronic illness, failure and frustration, rejection by friends and family, and even a sense of alienation from God may threaten to undo us entirely. Jesus certainly felt that way, at least on the cross, though perhaps at other times as well, as enemies constantly surrounded him and those closest to him misunderstood him.
But this psalmist, a son of Korah, refuses to give up. He keeps his eyes fixed on God, whom he mentions no fewer than nineteen times within the sixteen verses of the two psalms, Psalms 42 and 43 (which were originally one). “Hope in God,” he three times commands himself, "for I shall yet praise Him, the help [salvation] of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:5, 11).
So, however low we may feel, let’s lift our eyes to our God, whose love for us was demonstrated once and for all at the cross (Romans 5:8).
“Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the salvation of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 43:5).
Yours in his saving presence,
Wright