THIRSTING FOR GOD IN TROUBLE
Psalm
42:1-11, 6/18/2017
Introduction:
Life’s
crazy cycle seems to be spinning out of control these days. Everyone seems to
be strapped for time, weighed down by the burdens and pressures of life. We
have to work hard to keep paying the bills, to clear our debts and stay afloat.
It looks like our present culture is putting us through a pressure cooker. By
the end of the day we come home exhausted, weary, and hardly have any strength
left to carry on the other responsibilities at home. We go to bed tired, we
battle insomnia, we wake up more tired and hit the road again. The crazy cycle
starts to spin again. Does this crazy
cycle sound familiar to anyone?
Last,
week has been one of those weeks for me where my schedule was fully packed with
appointments, meetings, errands, phone calls and sermon preparation. By the
middle of the week I was getting a bit weary. I went to attend our pastor’s
group in Braintree, after catching up with each other, sharing in one another’s
personal, and ministry challenges, we started our devotion. A fellow pastor led
us through a different kind of devotion this time, it was to close our eyes and
to consciously and slowly breathe in and out, thinking about God’s love, peace,
and the rest he was brining to our souls.
It was one of the best meditation times I had in a long time. No
debates, opinions expressed, exhortations, but simply resting in the presence
of the Lord.
After
that peaceful experience, again life’s crazy cycle began. More meetings, more
challenges, somehow by the end of Friday I finished my sermon, thinking I had a
good sermon for Father’s Day, but the Lord seemed to have something else in
mind. At first, I was upset with that thought, I panicked, and wondered, how I
was going to get ready for Sunday. As I quieted myself for a while, skipping my
CNN fix, the Lord led me to a passage of scripture, “By day the LORD directs his
love, at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”
With that assurance, I went to bed singing that song I slept peacefully through
the night without a worry.
I
got up Saturday morning at 5:00 A.M, again it is quite unusual for me to get up
that early on Saturdays, this time I had to take Jemimah for her road test.
While waiting in the McDonald’s parking lot, I began to study this passage, it
was one of the most refreshing quiet times, (in the midst of a crazy, chaotic
world) I had in a long time. My soul, and body was refreshed. Today’s message
is the outcome of my need for more of God. What are you thirsty for today? Is
your scheduled so crowded that it leaves you thirsty for time alone with God? I
title this message, “THIRSTING FOR GOD
IN TROUBLE” Psalm 42:1-1. A bit of
background of the book of Psalms, and an understanding of the context of this
particular Psalm will help us to appreciate and apply this Psalm to our
personal situations. Let’s get started.
BACKGROUND:
Authors: David,
Asaph, the Sons of Korah, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, Moses and unknown authors. The
dates were between the time of Moses (probably about 1440 BC) and the time
following the Babylonian exile (after 538 BC). The Psalms for the most part a
book of prayer and praise. In it faith speaks to God in prayer and about God in
praise. But there are also psalms that are explicitly instructional in form and
purpose, teaching the way of godliness.
What
do we know about Psalm 42. It is a prayer for deliverance from being “oppressed
by the enemy” (42:9; 43:2) and for restoration to the presence of God at his
temple. Psalm 42 & 43, these two psalms form a single prayer (though they
are counted as two psalms) The speaker may have been a leading member of the
Korahites, whose normal duties involved him in the liturgical activities of the
temple. The “unfaithful nation” in Ch 43:1, was referring to Arameans of
Damascus and that the author had been taken captive by the Arameans during one
of their attacks into Judah. While living in exile, away from his home land the
author writes this Psalm. It can be divided into two parts: The Psalmist’s
thirst for God in trouble, and the remedy for a disturbed soul.
I.
THIRSTING FOR GOD IN TROUBLE: (1-4)
Vs 1-4, “As
the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house
of God under the protection of the Mighty
One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.”
Where was
the Psalmist when he wrote this Psalm? Vs 6, gives us the location, “My soul is
downcast within me; therefore, I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon from Mount Mizar.” The Psalmist remembers in his exile
the joy of his past intimacy with God, now in exile painfully wonders why God
has forgotten him, yet he was not without hope. From the land . . . from Mount
Mizar. Probably indicating that the author speaks from exile outside the
contemporary boundaries of Israel and Judah. Some think the author locates
himself at Mount Mizar (a small peak or village, not otherwise known) on the
flanks of Mount Hermon somewhere near the headwaters of the Jordan.
This Psalm begins and ends with a deep longing to be with
God. To express that longing the author uses, two powerful metaphors, “A deer”
and “Water” The Psalmist refers himself to a deer, who has been running away
from hunters, exhausted and thirsty, its entire life now depends on water, so she
pants for streams of water. The second metaphor is water. Thirst is such a
powerful longing that it displaces all others. I learned something about thirst
during my study. “We frequently mistake dehydration for hunger. Thirst and
hunger send similar signals to our brain. Staying hydrated throughout the day
will help avoid false hunger pangs. Do you feel like you’re always hungry? Or
do you frequently want something to eat, you may be dehydrated, and your body
may be misinterpreting those feelings of thirst as hunger.”
My wife
often tells me, drinking a glass or two of water before eating, can keep you from
over eating. Coming back to our Psalm, though the Psalmist longs for God’s help
in the midst of physical thirst and danger, this metaphor also offers a
profound spiritual image: Pursuing our relationship with God is as essential to
our spiritual wellbeing as water is to our physical well-being. The image of a
quiet stream suggests tranquility, while a crashing wave speaks of power.
Images of water can convey strength, beauty, terror or peace.
The Psalmist
recognizes water’s spiritual symbolism. God’s voice is heard as, “Deep calls to
deep in the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have swept
over me.”
What does it mean, “Deep Calls to
deep”? The “deep” above (from God) pours down into
the streams and rivers that empty into the seas, the “deep” below. It pictures
the great distress the author suffers, and the imagery is continued in the
following reference to God’s “waves and breakers” sweeping over him. In other words, God’s hand is involved in the
psalmist’s suffering. However, not apart from, but in the midst of his
suffering the Psalmist was thirsting for God.
II. THE REMEDY FOR A
DISTURBED SOUL (42:5, 11 & 43:5)
Out of
seventeen verses of this Psalm, three times the Psalmist talks about his soul’s
condition. Vs 5, “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.” In the
Message Bible it reads, “why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you
crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God—soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a
smile on my face. He’s my God.”
Here we see
the Psalmist, was in touch with what was really going on in his inner life.
After admitting, that he was in deep trouble, he rebukes his soul and later on encourages
himself in the Lord. Though the Psalmist talked to his soul the inner person,
he doesn’t show any distinction between his inner life and outer life, as they
both are inseperable.
He was
connecting his soul’s condition to his physical condition by saying, Vs 10, “My
bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
It is so true that there is a direct co-relationship between
our soul and our body. What happens to our body effects our soul and vice versa.
For example, I struggled with gout for about three years and those were
emotionally disturbing years of my life. Similarly, if our emotional health is in
disarray, due to a divorce, a broken relationship, or death of a loved one the
physical health of individuals and or the family can take a toll. So, if we
want to live happily and healthily we need to take good care of our physical
and emotional health.
The Psalmist
gives two remedies for a disturbed soul. First, putting our hope in God. The
scriptures tell us, our God is the God of hope (Romans 15:13). Not only he is
the God of hope, “In
his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never
perish, spoil or fade.” I Peter 1:3-4 Our God is the God of hope, he raised us
to a living hope but he himself is our hope (I Tim 1:1)
The second
remedy for a disturbed soul is to Praise God regardless of the trouble. The
Psalmist said, after assessing and recollecting his troubled situation, “for I
will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” This personal determination to
praise God must be made by any and every individual whose soul is troubled
today, no one else can make that determination.
Putting our hope
in God and Praising God works like miracle medicine for a troubled soul. How is your Soul today? Is it troubled? Is
there a hopeless situation you are facing? Are you battling through a hopeless
illness? Are you trying to save a hopeless marriage? What do you need most
today? Do you need just a word of hope? That’s what we all need. However, the
key to having hope is to thirst for God during our troubled times. When we do
that God will come to us and satisfies our thirst by his very presence which is
the anchor of our Hope. Amen
