Psalm 42:1-4
As the deer longs for the water brooks, so longs my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteh for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before my God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say unto me. Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with a multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept the holyday.
Okay, there is alot going on within these verses. The three take aways that I treasure most about the Psalms are: that they contain both labour and triumph, are filled with numerous examples of God's eternal providence, and they exmplified pure worship wondrously and continuously which is demonstrated in their tone and substance. With that said, I would like to focus today on the theme presented in my preceding devotions, broken heartedness. In the first two devotions, we examined the broken heart, or crushed spirit, that may result from individual pain, spiritual struggle, physical ailment, or emotional distress. Here, the broken heart is personified as a deer thirsting for water, that thirst driving him to find sustenance, quenching, and relief. Here, the broken heart, I believe, represents that moment of submission or surrender to the absolute necessity to have God restore and revive us. It is a longing to draw close to God for no other reason but to experience Him in every facet of our lives. It is when we seek to shatter the shell of cynicism and bitterness encasing our hearts, having it fall away to reveal that God is our only sustenance and provider. The psalmist so intensely desires communion with God that he weeps day and night for it until God responds. He compares his submission to the very pouring out of his soul. How many times have we said a prayer that barely lasts several minute or, even, seconds, asking God for His support and comfort as we; shower, drive to work, or during our exercise regime then remaining silent to Him for the rest of the day. Then we wonder why God is silent to us. We sip from the brook, rather than immerse ourselves in it, attempting to satisfy a thirst that permeates every inch of our soul with a mere lap of our tongues. God answers all prayer, sometimes in ways we may not agree with, but He undoubtedly knows best. To move past that, into truly building a relationship with our Lord and Saviour, requires a desperate and endless longing to have Him fill our spirit to the point of overflow. We pant for so much in this world; money, position, power, relationships, strength, popularity, stability, materialism, political opinion, and personal satisfaction. We place the most high God in second, third, and even, last place in our lives. We only go to Him when needs have become to great to understand and too heavy to carry. Can we only imagine how extraordinary life would be if we hungered for God like we are famished for the things of this temporal world. We are judged by what we hold must dear in our lives. What do you thirst for? What does your soul literally long for? When you decide, measure it with the possibility of a deepening relationship with your creator. Where God sizes up against those desires say alot about who you are and where your life has been, and is going. God is always waiting for us to return to Him, what an amazing and incomprehensible love He has considering our track record. God bless.
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