Day 2: The Yearner
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.
Psalm 42
The Yearner: Notice whom the psalmist artist paints as his portrait of being thirsty: a deer. Commentator Albert Barnes theorized that the animal of a “hart” (as used in King James) may have been chosen because “there is an idea of tenderness. These (creatures) are so timid, so gentle, so delicate in the structure…that our feelings are drawn towards them…We sympathize with them; we pity them; we love them; we feel deeply for them when they are pursued, when they fly away in fear, when they are in want.”
Why do we have such dark nights and times when we feel so far away from God; that He does not answer our prayers? Such a yearning is actually just as healthy as a thirsting or a hunger. Can you imagine what it would be like if we never thirsted? Would we no longer need water? Of course we would. The very anguish the Psalmist has and we have is proof that we need to yearn for God.
The spiritual condition of the writer is of deep sadness and depression. Though the Psalmist’s spiritual mouth is parched, his eyes flow with tears from which he has fed for days. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks.
Compare Psalm 42 and 43. The greatest comparisons are the identical phrases of verse 42:5 and 11 and 43:5, “Why 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.”
The greatest contrasts are in verses 3 and 4 of the two chapters.
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
Psalm 42
3 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your tabernacle. 4 Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God.
Psalm 43
He used to go with the crowd to worship with joy and praise. But somewhere along the way, his companionship changed and now he was surrounded by unbelievers who brought him down. His deliverance will be found when God leads him in light and truth back to worship and the fellowship with other worshipers in joyful praise!
Have you fallen away and no longer are The Yearner? What caused your heart to harden? Have you drank from unholy waters which make you feel refreshed but in reality it merely covers up the longing thirst for that which is holy?
Our bodies can sustain the desires of hunger for hours, days and if need be, even up to several weeks. But survival without some type of fluid is limited to only a matter of days and the survival is shortened when the heat is on! Like a dry and scorching day in the desert, the external conditions for the writer were also sweltering. He admitted to God twice (5 and 11) that his soul was cast down -- to his own shame.
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
Deep calls to deep reminds us what Paul said in Romans 8:26, where he said that we have groaning too deep for words.
He was not afraid to question God. The phrase, “we should never question God” is not Biblically accurate. Elsewhere, David asked God “why?” repeatedly (Ps. 22, 43:2, 44:23, 74:1, 11, 80:12), and for that matter, so did the Lord Jesus Christ. But here, as soon as the writer questions God, he also questions himself.
In the midst of his sorrow, he is assured he will see and hear from God, and so he will continue to praise him and put his hope in Him.
Pray this prayer to God: O my Father, my soul is downcast. I am so disturbed and disquieted. I fear I will never yearn for You as I once did. I confess, my interests and heart's desire has gone elsewhere. And now when I need you, I feel guilty because I have left the purity of waters and wandered to foul, putrid rivers which have only left me more thirsty than ever. I pant to You “WHY?” But not “Why did You leave me?” But “Why did I leave You?” I put my hope where it should have never left, back in You. Amen.
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