Psalm 42

¹As 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.

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
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.
⁷ Deep 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?”

¹¹ 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.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… My tears have been my food day and night

I am a crier. I cry at everything. I cry when I’m tired, when I’m frustrated, when I’m happy, sometimes even when I watch sappy Hallmark Christmas movies. I have been to that point of upset that all I do is cry, and as soon as I get calmed down a little, the tears just start dripping again. Everything is just heaped on top of everything else so that I don’t even know what I’m really upset about anymore. First it’s the initial problem, then it’s that I got upset with it, then I’m frustrated that it exists, then I get more angry because I wasted the day on this one issue, then I’m tired of thinking about it, then I’m get upset over some tangential problem.

For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God

I can’t say exclusively, but most of my moments of self-doubt come during times when I’m not walking as closely as I should with God. Now, I don’t believe that God loves anyone more or less for going or not going to church. The church is just a building, and we are told, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20, NIV). However, in the pre-Jesus days of the Psalms, they basically believed that God lived at the temple. If someone didn’t go to the temple, he wasn’t spending face-time with God.

O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore I will remember You

So, when we come to those moments of despair, we have to realize that it’s not God who is absent from us, but we who are absent from God. The poet keeps asking, even after this moment where God has gone. He probably had never heard that “Footprints in the Sand” thing. Heck, I’m a huge fan of that poem, and I still tend to forget it in the times when I need it the most. The point is, God can seem absent in our lives sometimes. I can’t begin to guess at His design. Does He want to test our mettle? Maybe it’s just that we’re too stubborn to see Him? Maybe we’ve pushed Him away from ourselves? Is He just waiting for us to ask? Maybe it’s some combination of those things—or none of them. The important thing to remember is that God never abandons us permanently.

The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me

It’s a beautiful contrast to the beginning of the poem when we were feeding on tears night and day. Lovingkindness is a “tenderness and consideration toward others.” During the day, we’re usually around all sorts of people, getting stressed out with work, school, kids, whatever. What we need during the day is for someone to be pouring lovingkindness on us so that we can manage and maybe be an inspiration to others. On the other hand, night is usually a calmer time of day. It’s a great time for singing. Singing while I cook or do the dishes or take a shower or look up Greek vocabulary.

But, I suppose it’s not important which time either happens. The important point is that God can replace our sorrow that we feel when our souls are longing for Him with His blessings.