Psalm 42

There are times in the Christian life, when we ask if God has forsaken us, if he has forgotten us. We don't know what the future holds. We only see bleakness, loneliness, despair ahead. I think psalm 42 describes this perfectly. In it the writer seems lost, surrounded by enemies, in tears and under attack. He sees the prosperity of others and wonders through sorrow how God can let him be in his current state. However, in it he longs, not for prosperity, or for victory, but he longs for God, and the hope that one day he will be able to praise him again as his Saviour. 


If you are going through a time like this, not only does bible know how you feel, but so does God. We have rejected him and turned away from him. We who were the apple of his eye, the pinnacle of his creation. Think of his sorrow at our rejection of him. Then think of his great love in sending his treasured son to suffer the wrath that we deserve. Praise him for that, and then sing with psalm 42 in knowing that we can:

"Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God (Ps 42:5-6)"

Let us continue to strive to make God the apple of our eye, our hope, our desire, our joy. The things of this world will never satisfy us. Let us wake up to see a bigger picture, of service for a loving, kind, saving, gracious, merciful God, who will grant us our hearts desire, in an eternal relationship with him forever.

Psalm 42

    As the deer pants for streams of water,
       so my soul pants for you, O God. ² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
       When can I go and meet with God?
 ³ My tears have been my food
       day and night,
       while men say to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?"
 ⁴ 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.
 ⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
       Why so disturbed within me?
       Put your hope in God,
       for I will yet praise him,
       my Savior and ⁶ my God.
       My soul is downcast within me;
       therefore I will remember you
       from the land of the Jordan,
       the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
 ⁷ Deep calls to deep
       in the roar of your waterfalls;
       all your waves and breakers
       have swept over me.
 ⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
       at night his song is with me—
       a prayer to the God of my life.
 ⁹ I say to God my Rock,
       "Why have you forgotten me?
       Why must I go about mourning,
       oppressed by the enemy?"
 ¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
       as my foes taunt me,
       saying to me all day long,
       "Where is your God?"
 ¹¹ Why are you 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.