"As the hart (deer) panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before Him."
These are two of my favorite verses in the psalms. They express a need that every Christian has. Our greatest passion should be God/Christ. Whatever gifts of the Spirit we might have, and whatever desires we might have in our service to Him, we need to thirst for Him - period. The psalmist compared himself to a thirsty deer in his thirst for God. I have never really seen a thirsty deer, but I have seen thirsty cows, etc. When they are thirsty, they really go after it. This is how we should long for more of God/Christ. These "thirsty" times are the times when we can't wait to get to our personal prayer closets and fellowship with Him. In those times, we are not really asking for anything. We just want more of Jesus. We want to be closer to Him. We want to express our love and devotion to Him. These are the kinds of prayer moments that change our lives, draw us closer to Jesus and to each other. Of course, the Lord wants to hear our petitions, for He wants to meet our needs. He knows what our greatest needs are, and He will meet them, but we need to grow enough spiritually to worship the Lord simply because He is the Lord, not just for what He can do for us. I think that this was what was happening in these two verses from Psalm 42. The psalmist was going through a difficult time when he wrote these verses. .He wrote. “Why are you cast down oh my soul?” (Verse 7) If you will read the whole psalm you will see that this was not a victorious time for the psalmist. The point is that God allows these times so that we will feel the need to draw closer to Him. We need to be reminded that we need the Lord at all times, and that only He can fulfill the deep needs of our souls. Notice that the prayer is, “so panteth my soul after thee.” This prayer came from the deepest longings of the psalmist’s soul. I will confess that there are times when I feel a deeper need for the presence of God than at other times. The need is always the same, but we do not always feel the need the same. When our souls are “cast down” we find ourselves not just talking to God, but reaching out to Him from deep inside of ourselves – from our souls. Let’s think about David just before he faced Goliath. I think that David was reaching out to God from his soul. He had to be because he knew that he really needed God at that time. There was no way on earth that this young fellow could face up to Goliath in the flesh. David was probably reaching out to God from his soul. We can understand these times, because we face them ourselves if we seriously serve the Lord. I have found myself in many situations where my soul was panting after God. I think that this is what Paul meant when he wrote in Romans 8:26-27: “Likewise the Spirit also helps us our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27. And He that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." The amazing thing is that when we seek more of the Lord, we find that He is willing to give more of Himself and to bring blessings into our lives. I wish that I could say that every prayer session I have is like that, but it would not be true. But what great times await us when we thirst for more of God. Get thirsty! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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