Yearning Day 1

Day 1. The Yearning

     Do you long for God’s presence? How greatly do you yearn for Him? The Bible draws a picture of a deer thirsting after water. 

     In addition to times of great drought and thirst, a deer seeks water when in need of shelter from danger, when fighting an opponent in combat, when sick with fever and in need of the water's refreshing coolness. Similarly, it is in times of spiritual isolation, battle, and affliction that we truly thirst for God’s presence in prayer.

¹ As the deer pants for the water brooks, 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 continually say to me, “Where is your God?” ⁴ When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. ⁵Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. ⁶ O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mizar. ⁷Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me. ⁸ The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me-- A prayer to the God of my life. ⁹ I will 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 breaking of my bones, my enemies reproach me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ¹¹Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

Psalm 42

The Yearning:  Notice first of all the verb that is used in this portrait of prayer: “pant.” The word the psalmist uses is only used twice in the Old Testament, both in reference to an extreme, desperate thirst from a parched animal. In Joel 1:19-20, the prophet says, “O Lord, to You I cry out; for fire has devoured the open pastures, and a flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to You, for the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures.” Joel uses words like “cry” and “groan,” with a sense of confusion and despondency.

The thirst of the soul is not just a passing desire or whim, but it is an absolute necessity of a believer to seek. When I was a boy scout, I forgot my canteen of water and I desperately sought a drink from a friend of mine named Paul. He refused, saying he didn’t want to let anyone else drink out of his canteen or else he might get germs. 

In the Texas summer heat, it didn’t take long for me to have a desperate thirst for water. A few weeks later, I heard a story about Paul who was at another event and this time, he had forgotten his own water. Suddenly, he was no longer concerned about germs and got so thirsty that he ran to a stagnant pond and began lapping up the murky, muddy water like a dog.

Thirsting after God is a recurring theme in the Old and New Testament. Ps. 63:1 says: My soul thirsts for You/My flesh longs for You/In a dry and thirsty land/Where there is no water. Such a yearning for God is described again in Psalm 84:2: My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

How thirsty are you for God and His presence? This yearning is similar to what Isaiah said of God in Isaiah 26: 

⁸ Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You; The desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You. ⁹ With my soul I have desired You in the night, yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; for when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. 

Here, Isaiah, the inspired prophet, wrote that in his soul, he coveted, he craved, and he longed for God. In fact, that word is actually translated in the Ten Commandments as the word “covet” and elsewhere as “lust.” It is the same word used in 1 Chronicles 11:17, where David “longed” for a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem.

Pray this prayer to God: O, God, make my heart long for You. I confess my heart is dry, stale, and indifferent to You. I lust and covet other things, but now my soul desires Your presence with me. I thirst and yearn for your Spirit to drench my spirit with your satisfying quenching of my cries for You. Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole. Amen.