Psalm 42
As the deer pants for water
So my soul longs after you
My soul thirsts for God
For the Living God
Where can I go and meet with God?
So the Psalmist introduces the longing you and I feel to be together, together, instead of together alone…
My tears have been my food
day and night
While people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
As is typical of the psalms’ songwriters, they are not afraid to emote and share with God and the world the nature of their longing, the struggle of their doubts and even their anger at God’s (perceived lack of) response…
These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.
This is the line that caught my attention for this devotional thought. I remember when we were together embracing, eating, worshiping. But not for now….
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Although the psalmist will tell you what he’s feeling, he’s even quicker to turn it all over to the LORD and off of himself…
And for the remainder of the psalm, he wrestles “out loud” with the tension of what he’s experiencing and where his ultimate hope lies…
Psalm 42 serves as the perfect opportunity to address and express the nature of the hope we now have and share. It is far from denial and willingly and maybe even loudly cries out for the end of the suffering/pain/isolation/etc.
Yet, even more powerfully, it turns to God; it comes before the Presence of God and dumps our mess before him. Because as the psalms illustrate over and over and over again – it’s all about Him.
Our hope isn’t a wish for things bad to go away, but a confident expectation that God is in the mess and transforming it for our good and His Glory! I probably can’t see why, or how or anysuchthing, but I trust the Lord who can and does and has already seen it all.
Your hope is contagious too. Spread your hope around!
Peace,
Karl
