As The Deer Pants...

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you so 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. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan.’” Psalm 42:1-6

I rarely use a passage this long because of the depth of truth we can glean from one precious Word of God. This passage has so much truth and honesty from the heart of a grieving Christian. This Psalm was written by King David, a man described in the Bible as ‘a man after God’s heart’. He was one of the most spiritual champions who ever lived and yet this passage is proof that he felt as if he lacked God’s presence in this situation. He likened his soul to a deer who was completely depleted of nourishment. He admitted his need to experience not just God but the living God. The one who can comfort, rescue and spiritually nourish. He speaks in his heart journal the need to ‘remember’ what God has done in the past since he cannot feel Him in his present. He acknowledges that he used to be a leader in his faith but has lost his place in line. He no longer leads the spiritual pack but falls in despair. He acknowledges his distress, despair and spiritual depression. He then raises the essential principle of despair – continue praising God apart from the circumstances. He claims that God is still his Savior and His God. He ends with remembering the God with whom he has met at other disparaging times of his life until He can see the Savior delivering him in this situation.

Who can relate to this heart cry to God this morning? I know I can on some levels. In my present situation it feels as if resolution will never come. I must recall the times when he has ‘calmed greater waters than these and made higher mountains come down.’

While our faith can be so strong in some arenas it can be so fragile in others. Just because the sun is behind the clouds doesn’t mean it isn’t warming the earth. Our faith in God keeps us warm even when we feel we are in the cold darkness.