Today’s Our Daily Bread is in Leviticus with the “Thou Shalt Nots.” Those are pretty clear without a lot of additional commentary needed. So for this morning I’m commenting from Psalm 42 as prompted by the “NIV Devotions for Men” from BibleGateway.com that I received a week ago today on my birthday:
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?
…
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.
(Psalm 42:1-2, 11 NIV)
When we sing the praise and worship chorus that begins with the opening verse of this psalm, there is little connection to the original type of longing while feeling isolated amidst adversity. Like a horse’s head yanked straight by its rider, verse 11 ends up the psalm it seems like a forced refocus. In spite of the fact those around are echoing the question in his mind, “where’s God?” the Psalmist forces his mind to remember the joys of corporate worship (v4) and God’s unchanging faithfulness (v8). The lesson is this: This is a messed up world and we all go through adversity and regardless of what we hear around us or what our emotions are in response to the mess, God’s unfailing love remains unchanged and our hope is secure. Much like a Windows computer, sometimes we must reboot our thinking to cleanup some of the junk that collects through just normal operation in this messy world. The Truth remains the Truth regardless of the situation or the emotions. Sometimes we must just stop and remember.
- Andy Jentes
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