Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

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Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. 〰️

Psalm 42 lays the groundwork for how our longing is like a loaded gun; our aim matters. If we miss our target, we become increasingly unsatisfied because we are looking in the wrong direction for what will quench our thirst.

This short blog is going to look closely at the first stanza of Psalm 42.

Before we dive into this iconic Psalm, it’s first helpful to understand what this Psalm is at its essence. This work is intended to be rehearsed skillfully as a liturgical practice so that it repeatedly hones in our longing for God, especially during difficult circumstances that lead us to believe God has abandoned us in our moment of need. So, a brief devotional style of reading this Psalm will not work. Read it, study it, sing it, and re-read it.

The Psalm begins with this first line of poetry.

As the deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God!

The Psalmist recognizes something missing from his life that is as important to him as a deer dying of thirst and longing for the water brooks he desperately needs. The image most of us have is something like the below image.

This is not the image of this text: a cute baby deer lapping up cool water because he was a little parched. This is about life and death, not a sippy sip.

It’s more like this elk calling out in agony, wondering when he will find another drink. It’s been days of hard searching with no sign of hope, but he keeps yearning.

“Longing” in this verse is intended to mean stretching out the entire body in desire. In this case, for God.

Verses 2-4 carry the strophe, further agitating the Psalmist’s situation.

I thirst for God,
for the living God.
I say, “When will I be able to go and appear in God’s presence?”
3 I cannot eat; I weep day and night.
All day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”
4 I will remember and weep.
For I was once walking along with the great throng to the temple of God,
shouting and giving thanks along with the crowd as we celebrated the holy festival.

Notice the agony of being without God’s presence in this context; the Psalmist is referring to temple worship in Jerusalem, God’s dwelling place. The Psalmist knows that he is in danger away from God’s presence and longs to be with God whom he loves.

Where we go wrong.

Don’t brush past this next question.

How do you respond when God feels distant? Try writing it down and being brutally honest with yourself. When God feels far off, what do you do?

The common answer is that we are somewhat unaffected by this feeling. We notice God feels distant, but there is no longing, no crying out to God to remember his promises. Is it because we are afraid of being authentic?

If that’s the case, then be inauthentic! Get your idealism out of your way and run hard after God. You know what you need to do to follow God. If not, here is a list to start.