Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-november-9-2023
Psalm 42
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 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.
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.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 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.
It’s pretty rare for us to base our daily Reflections on readings from the Psalms. Usually we base our Bible Reflections on the lectionary readings from the gospels, because that’s where we find the life and teachings of Jesus. And since we’re followers of Jesus, it seems reasonable to focus the majority of our attention there. And the rest of the New Testament teaches us how to live as followers of Jesus, so usually if our reading isn’t from the gospels, it’s the other New Testament reading for the day.
But once in a while, it seems appropriate to take time to reflect on one of the Psalms. One of my favorites is Psalm 42. There are two things about this psalm that I find especially engaging.
First of all, Psalm 42 expresses an emotional side of the faith that’s easy for Protestant Christians to miss out on – and that’s especially true of Presbyterians. We tend to focus on having the right knowledge about God, and on accepting the right doctrines about God. There’s nothing wrong with knowledge or doctrines. But they’re things of the mind, and we’re commanded to ‘love God with all our hearts and all our souls and all our strength,’ too. So being completely focused on the mental side of our relationship with God leaves out a lot of important aspects of that relationship. And Psalm 42 speaks of the hunger in our hearts and souls for a real and authentic relationship with God.
We tend to think of our soul as an immaterial thing inside us somewhere, a thing that escapes and floats up to heaven when we die. But that’s a concept of the soul that comes from Greek philosophy, not really from the Bible. The Bible usually expresses the idea that the soul is a capability that God has placed in each of us – an ability to relate to him and to other people. So the opening verses of this Psalm 42 talk about the profound longing of a believer to experience the presence of God and to be in relationship with him.
Lots of American mainline Protestants are uncomfortable with things of faith that express a profound longing for deeper relationship with God. But that’s probably a shame. Clearly, some of our fellow believers are more willing to open themselves to that deeper relationship. The beautiful meditative contemporary song Breathe has the chant-like refrain, “And I, I’m desperate for you. And I, I’m lost without you.”
Psalm 42 says, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls.” These words express the idea that the deepest part of God’s own heart is always calling out to the deepest part of our hearts. God’s desire is not for the superficial relationships that lots of us seem to be willing to accept as the meaning of faith. It’s not enough just to say that we accept what the theologians tell us about the doctrines of the faith. Instead, God wants the deepest part of our hearts to be linked to the deepest part of his own.
The great theologian Augustine of Hippo wrote in the fifth century that there is a ‘God-shaped hole in our hearts,’ and our hearts can never be completely at rest until God is present there. This psalm seems to express that thought very poetically.
It seems to me that if we’re satisfied to engage God only with our minds, we’re missing out on the most powerful aspects of the life of faith. We’re called to love him with all our hearts and all our souls as well as all our minds. And really knowing the joy of deep relationship with God, it seems to me, can only happen when we open our hearts and souls to allow God to pour out that presence we thirst for as followers of his Son.
Let’s pray. Lord, we want to connect with you on a deeper level than we have in the past. Let your Spirit open our hearts, and let us experience the depth of your love in ways we never have before. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The listed readings for today are Psalms 75 and 76; Zechariah 1:7-17; Revelation 14:1-13; and Matthew 14:1-12. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society)
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