So I went to the ‘What to Read When’ and found…Psalm 42
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants 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 day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence. O 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 rolled over me. The LORD will command His lovingkindness 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 mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 42:1-11
I love verse one! ”As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for Thee O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and see the face of God?”
I’m feeling very much like the rich man coming to Jesus and saying what must I do to inherit eternal life. He was thirsting after God. But Jesus knew the man’s heart and that all his ‘things’ were keeping him from getting to the source of true living water. He was putting his trust in his things. Jesus wanted him to trust Him, and to be able to do that he needed to get rid of all the things ‘idols’ between himself and God.
I think we in America are especially vulnerable to that trap. It’s even preached from the pulpit. God wants you to have prosperity. The name it claim preaching has become very popular in this age, it can be yours “if”, you have the right attitude and so on. I look at what I have, some would say I have a lot, others would say, not so much. I have been struggling with what I have, feeling like, I did not gain it without a lot of hard work, there are plenty of scriptures attesting to working and gaining, BUT, this is not the first time God has allowed me to lose everything. What is that saying? ‘I’ve been around this mountain before!’ And so now I’m asking “why” must I give it all up? Wow, that question pierces my heart! It seems so obvious, if there is the slightest chance that I have put anything before my love of my Lord and Saviour, my God, then I am glad that it is being taken from me, again.
But where do I go from here? Do I start all over again gathering more? Or, this time, will I finally ignore what the world says I should be doing, and “…seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you…not being anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:33, 34
In 1 John 1 We’re told that…”If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” And in James 5 we’re told…”Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].”
So, brothers and sisters, I’m confessing to you, I am really struggling with these times we find ourselves in. I don’t want to wrestle, as it were with the Lord, to hang onto worldly treasures, only to block God from giving me the true blessings that He has for me…writing this has already quenched my soul, so I will keep on “waiting for God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” And here I find myself ready for the day, His word strengthening, cleansing, changing…He is my Awesome Lord and Saviour!
Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
The help of my countenance and my God.
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