This Week’s Psalm: Psalm 42 (Full passage at the bottom)
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?4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God.
If you are following along in the Upper Room Prayer Book you’ve been reading Psalm 42 everyday along with the daily Scripture. Thirst is the theme this week. Scriptures that keeps pointing us to the true “Thirst Quencher” with passages that remind us where to go to stay hydrated.
David says, When can I go and meet with God?… I remember…how I used to go to the house of God.” While he known as is the man after God’s own heart, writer of powerful prayers and soulful songs in solitude, David is thirsty for the presence of God in God’s House.
Where do you meet with God? Remember a time when you felt life, courage, grace or energy. Where were you when you felt it? Remember where you were when you felt convited of sin, forgiven and loved by God. Maybe hope rose in your soul and a song of praise from your mouth. Don’t neglect these places, prayer places. worship places, places of grace that water your soul. Love God and yourself enough to make it your regular spiritual practice to meet God there. When will you do it? Use the 3G practice-
Give up – excuses for why you aren’t making time to be where you are hydrated.
Give in – to adding these places to your calendar and faithfully meeting God there.
Give out- a praise to God for the promise of hydration for your soul when you meet God there.
Stay quenched my friend,
Scott and Clare
Psalm 42
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.
©csloughrige2016