Stand Up

Psalm 42
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O 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 men 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 with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and 6 my God.
My [c] 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 are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.


I have found here lately that the closer one pushes into God the further others get pushed away. It seems our God is a holy god and a jealous God. He won't share our affection.

The psalmist say his soul pants for the lord. I can see no other way. When the Lord becomes the burning desire of the heart nothing else will satisfy and all else will become artificial and cheap.

But the lord is a jealous God, he won't share our affections. If we want Him we have to forsake all others. WE must climb to the cross and share his burden, his heart and his desires.

At this point I wish I could say all was joy, but honestly I can't. My head subscrbies to the idea, but my heart only feels the loneliness of being between to places.

When I read this Psalm I see David crying out for the satisfaction he longs for. He says he remebers the times he lead teh people in shouts of joy to the lord, but now he only knows the taste of ihs tears and those same peoples taunts.

It seems many people are willing to sing, dance and praise when you are learning about God. But when you are like David, demanding to know the heart of God, not just about him, those same people don't know how to seek him.

It seems that the more one desires to know the lord, the more unsatisfied one must become adn the further away from joy they march at least until they find what the are looking for.

The Lord is a jealous God and if we ask to know him, it appears he will not let us know any substitutions.