December 16, 2021
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in some selections in Psalms and Proverbs? Here’s today’s reading:
Psalms 42-43 (NIV)
For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.
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
We do have times when we do not feel God is close or isn’t helping us the way we want to be helped and these chapters reminded me that in those times we need to remember the hope we have in God and that we need His direction not just the way we want things to work out I love in Chapter 43 when it says “3 Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me;”
This should be our attitude in the hard times looking to be lead not whining about the circumstances.
Through all of our trials, our God is with us.
“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.”
Lord, give us the courage and strength to remember Your Greatness.
Psalms 42-43
“Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.”
Perseverance in knowing that God is with us despite the circumstances.
These Psalms are clearly connected as the refrain of the writer counseling his own soul is repeated in both. Psalm 43 provides the context of the challenges faced where the writer is pressed in by enemies and the wickedness that comes from them as well as feeling that God has abandoned him to. It seems mostly because He hasn’t seem to resolve the issues at hand. But he like us, doesn’t (shouldn’t) tolerate the idea that God is not present. He is the stronghold and the refuge. We need to be the ones who hunger and thirst after Him as the deer pants for water. How helpful it is as well to recognize the communal nature of his faith….that it is not only he that believes but he remembers times where he joined others worshipping as well. But when we are downcast, when people and circumstances are against us, it is wise to counsel our own soul. I love that he effectively asks himself, why are you letting this get to you when you have a God who is and has proved Himself to be greater than everything? Hopefully we all deal with ourselves in such a way and cling to and reenforce to ourselves all the things God is and has done….