Mark's thoughts: When our soul pants for God

The Psalms are inspired prayers that have served as the prayer book of God’s people since the days of the Old Testament.  They encompass a broad range of subjects and experiences.  In this variety, the Holy Spirit provides words of prayer that we can take up to address God in the circumstances of life in which we find ourselves.

There are times when we feel like God has abandoned us, or that He doesn’t care.  There are times when God seems to feel very distant.  These are not experiences that are unique to us.  They have been felt by God’s people throughout the history of Israel and the Church.  In fact, they have been felt and expressed in the inspired prayers of the Psalms.

Psalm 42 begins with the words:

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O 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 the day long, "Where is your God?" 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.  (42:1-4). 

In poignant imagery the psalmist expresses his desire for God who seems to be absent.  He expresses the emotional toll this is taking in the tears that flow.  Even as he experiences this, there seem to be those who mock him and his trust in God.  The situation of the psalmist is a change, for he recalls how he used to lead the processions to the temple singing praise to God. He knew the sense of trust and confidence in God, and the peace and joy this gave to him.  But now this is gone, and it seems likely that the memory pains him because it reminds him of what he has lost.

Yet just at this moment in the psalm, the psalmist abruptly addresses himself with the words: “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” (42:5).  In a statement of faith, the psalmist reproves his emotions and feelings.  He calls upon himself to hope in God for he knows that God is his salvation, and so inevitably he will again praise God. This time is painful, but in faith he calls himself to hope in God.

After this statement, the psalmist returns to a description of his trouble.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock: "Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 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?" (42:6-10).

The psalmist’s soul is indeed cast down, just as verse five had acknowledged.  Yet here the psalmist speaks of “remembering you.” He refers to God’s “steadfast love” and while he asks, “Why have you forgotten me?”, these words are addressed to “God, my rock.”  The note of faith and hope in God called for verse five begins to appear in small ways.

Then the psalm ends in verse 11 with the words: “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.”  The exact same statement heard in verse 5 closes the psalm as the psalmist again reproves his emotions and feelings.  He again calls upon himself to hope in God for he knows that God is his salvation.  Hope in God will lead to a time when he praises the God who is his salvation.

Psalm 42 provides the inspired words of a prayer that express feelings of God’s absence and abandonment.  Yet the refrain in verses 5 and 11 tells us that at these times we need to reprove and reject these feelings, for they are only feelings.  Instead, in faith we hope in God who is our salvation.  In times of trial there may be the need to do this repeatedly as the psalmist does.  The verses after the first time (42:6-10), show small signs of growing trust.  At the end, the psalmist again hits himself with the reproof: “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.”  Hoping in God, surely these words eventually yielded the desired outcome: “for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”  In these words, the Spirit provides the guidance of what we need to do, and even the very words for doing so.

 “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.”