This Sunday we will continue our studies in the Psalms. We will look closely at Psalm 42. It is a lamenting psalm but also one that is filled with hope. Meditate on Psalm 42-43 and then read some borrowed commentary from a preacher of yesteryear I found online who hits the nail on the head. It will prepare you for Sunday’s sermon.
As after a long drought the poor fainting hind longs for the streams, or rather as the hunted heart instinctively seeks after the river to have its smoking flanks and to escape the dogs, even so my weary, persecuted soul pants after the Lord my God. Debarred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honor he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need of his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. Like the parched traveler in the wilderness, whose skin bottle is empty, and who finds the wells dry, he must drink or die — he must have his God or faint. His soul, his very self, his deepest life, was insatiable for a sense of the divine presence. As the heart brays so his soul prays. Give him his God and he is as content as the poor deer which at length slakes its thirst and is perfectly happy; but deny him his Lord, and his heart heaves, his bosom palpitates, his whole frame is convulsed, like one who gasps for breath, or pants with long running.
Dear reader, dost thou know what this is, by personally having felt the same? It is a sweet bitterness. The next best thing to living in the light of the Lord’s love is to be unhappy till we have it, and to pant hourly after it — hourly, did I say? Thirst is a perpetual appetite, and not to be forgotten, and even thus continual is the heart’s longing after God. When it is as natural for us to long for God as for an animal to thirst, it is well with our souls, however painful our feelings. We may learn from this verse that the eagerness of our desires may be pleaded with God, and the more so, because there are special promises for the importunate and fervent.
Psalm 42-43
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
I remember these things and pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go over with the multitude and walk them to the house of God,
With a voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude celebrating a festival.
Why are you in despair, my soul?
And why are you restless within me?
Wait for God, for I will again praise Him
For the help of His presence, my God.
My soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have passed over me.
The Lord will send His goodness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries taunt me,
While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why are you in despair, my soul?
And why are you restless within me?
Wait for God, for I will again praise Him
For the help of His presence, my God.
Psalm 43
Vindicate me, God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation;
Save me from the deceitful and unjust person!
For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Send out Your light and Your truth, they shall lead me;
They shall bring me to Your holy hill
And to Your dwelling places.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
To God my exceeding joy;
And I will praise You on the lyre, God, my God.
Why are you in despair, my soul?
And why are you restless within me?
Wait for God, for I will again praise Him
For the help of His presence, my God.