#722 Dear To Me

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

3 My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

and 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 do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10 As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God. Psalm 42 ESV

The authorship of this Psalm is said to belong to the sons of Korah. How marvelous considering that most see the stock they come from as such a valuable thing. Some trace their lineage back to a famous king or warrior, thinking that, hoping that what their ancestor did may somehow apply to them. Others look back at the place, the tribe, the culture that a man comes from and think their is no hope for them. "Nothing good comes out of Nazareth". Korah was a thorn in the side of one of God's most prolific prophets. He led a rebellion against Aaron and Moses. I suppose where we start is not always where we have to end, and as many branches as their are, we are all from the same tree. We all start off on equal footing in this world, we are all born spiritually dead, sons of Adam.

Korah

Korah continued

As the deer pants - Three things I was taught to look for in the woods if I wanted to find deer, food, water and beds. We wake up thirsty, after we eat we are in want of something to wash it down, after being chased by the wolf or the lion, the sun and the heat of day, the deer points itself toward water. Down here he has to be wary of the alligator. In the mountains, the stream is often the low point, cut into the hill, he has to give up the higher ground, he has to put his head down, but he needs the water. God let me know that need of spiritual drink, that it is worth the risk of coming out into the open, bowing my head before you, setting aside the cares of this world, let me drink till I thirst no more, let me thirst so that I never stray too far from the brook.

My tears - What sort of pain causes this to be food? Ah, but he has not forgotten his first love, and to be separated from His presence is to lose the appetite for all else, nothing else fills, nothing else quenches. Only those who have thus set their affection can understand such grief.

Where is your God? - 

“Other of God’s suffering saints have met with the like measure. At Orleans, in France, as the bloody Papists murdered the Protestants, they cried out, Where is now your God? What is become of all your prayers and psalms now? Let your God that you called upon save you now if he can.” (Trapp)

“He saved others, but He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel! Let Him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in Him. 43He trusts in God. Let God deliver Him now if He wants Him. For He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44In the same way, even the robbers who were crucified with Him berated Him.…Matthew 27: 42-44

Why are you cast down - I will probably butcher it but there was a saying of the old preachers, that they would not preach to a congregation they had not prayed for, and they would not preach to others before they preached it to themselves. I miss the good old days, the gathering of like minds. He finds himself surrounded by those that heckle his belief, in enemy territory he does not see a friendly face. But still he ask himself why? Has Christ not died for my sins? Are those that jeer forever, or are they fading like the chaff? What have I to stay so down about, since surely I will praise Him once again.