Hope In God

As I’ve meditated the past week on Psalm 42, my mind goes back to soon after Ken and I were married and a friend came to us with an idea.

What would happen if we started a once a week group for Young Adults in the community to worship, hear a teaching, and just hang out together. Of course we were in!

Monday Night Bible Study began in the fellowship hall (1980’s, remember) of our church. It began with a small group of young adults, and then somehow word got out and we exploded to around 100 people from towns throughout the area. I loved every minute of those Monday nights! By the time we’d lock up the church, we were exhausted, but our hearts were ignited with hope watching what was happening.

One of the songs we sang was called “You Alone” by Robin Mark, but actually the chorus was written by the author of this Psalm. He was a worship leader of the Korathites, a family from the Tribe of Levi, at a time when Jerusalem was exiled from their homeland. The first two verses of Psalm 42:

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.

My soul thirst for God, for the living God.

Where can I go and meet with God?

- Psalm 42:1-2

A deer panting for water sounds sweet, if you’re thinking about Bambi, but this is about a ravaging thirst. The kind when your tongue feels swollen, your lips crack, and your muscles cramp. The kind of thirst where you feel panicked because you know what you need… if only you could find it. That’s the way the Psalmist’s soul pants for God. He cries out, “Where can I go to meet with God?”

He names what he is feeling in verses 5, 6 and 11: the fear, the loneliness, even a sense of betrayal that God has abandoned him. He is downcast, spiritually dry.

Do you ever feel that way? I know I have. I’ve begged God for an answer to my pleading prayer at times and other times I’ve just felt complacent towards Him. It’s like when you are sitting in church on a Sunday morning and you watch the person next to you, hands raised with tears running down their face, and wonder why you can’t feel that same closeness with God.

During those gut wrenching painful times are when we most need to laser focus on the times we’ve seen God’s goodness. I love verses 6-7:

My soul is downcast with me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan; the heights of Hermon - from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.

- Psalm 42:6-7

If you feel like you’re in a spiritual wasteland, God is still with you! He promises to never leave you nor forsake you. When I’m feeling distant from God, I repeat over and over to myself His promises, I read back through my journals of answered prayers, and I continue to put my hope in God!

I’ll leave you with two thoughts: the night sky is always the darkest just before dawn, and second, if you find yourself in the darkness, remember that it is required to be able to see the stars.

Pastor Pam

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