On Psalm 42

Summer Psalms - On Psalm 42

August 15, 2022

Pray for Illumination - Heavenly Father, help me to know your ways; teach me your paths and lead me into your truth. Amen.

Read Psalm 42

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.  Psalms 42:4 

It’s amazing how quickly life can change.  It seems only a short time ago that I was driving across Canada in a uhaul with my 5 year old son and a cat, excited about a new adventure awaiting us in British Columbia .  Yesterday, we celebrated my son’s 20th birthday!

Unfortunately not all of life’s changes leave us celebrating and eating cake.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Psalms 42:2

The Psalmist is longing for the days when he could go to the temple and worship God there.  But that has been taken away from him and he begins questioning God’s presence with him.
Sometimes it is thought that in order to be faithful to God, you cannot have doubts.  But doubts and uncertainties through difficult times are what give us the soil to grow in faithfulness.  This is one of my favorite Psalms because the writer starts preaching to himself when doubts show up:

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.  Psalms 42:5

Maybe today is a time in which you are facing some of your own doubts or uncertainties.   Consider some of the promises of God.  How would you preach a message of faithfulness to yourself?  What would you say?  Praise God for his promises and allow thanksgiving to season your prayer.

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.  Psalms 42:8