Hope In God

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs or you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food days and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me. By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

Psalm 42:1-11

It was catastrophic grief that prompted the psalmist to write. The struggle of his heart had been turned inward. While the rest of the world went on with business as usual, he carried in his heart the need for deep and complete healing. Only as we submit our brokenness to the good and great Shepherd of our hearts can we find the peace that allows us to respond to life. Hope in God is the only solution for the deep traumas of the heart.

No one is hopeless whose hope is in God.

Our Daily Bread – October 26, 2007