Summary: As a deer pants for water so my soul pants for God, are you desperate for God, do the mockers surround, do you fear the storm. Jesus is near ask and he will reach you, of this I’m sure Love will come down and rescue you, hold on help is here.

Series: Desperate for God

Scripture: Psalms 42:1-11 Psalms 63:1-3

Psalm 42 Verses 1-11: “1. As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. 2. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? 3. My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually say to me, “Where is your God?” 4. When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. 5. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.

6. O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar. 7. Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. 8. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me— A prayer to the God of my life. 9. I will say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10. As with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11. 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.”

Let’s also see Psalm 63:1-3 “1. O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water. 2. So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. 3. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You.”

What do you picture? A nice deer skipping up to a clear bubbling flowing spring and gently lapping up the refreshing water? Me I see a dehydrated creature, emancipated dragging itself across a desert desperately in search of a muddy wetness desperate for water, clinging to life and nothing seeming to quench the thirst, nothing. For me this speaks of a yearning beyond reason, beyond logic and soul centered must, beyond existence of self, a need for something that without life is nothing. “My soul pants for you, O God” these words just leap out and grab my heart, for me if I cannot know God then I would not want to live, I mean it, God is the All in All. This is not just a desperate plea, here is relationship thirsting for God knowing and acknowledging that God is alive, is real is here, but where is God. The deer staggers and collapses it can find no water, when can I go and meet with God? Do you have times when God seems distant, when prayers are unanswered, when worship is far from your heart? A desert place with no streams of water. Jesus did: Mark 14: 32–34 “32. Then they came to a place which was named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33. And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed. 34. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”

This is the experience of the person who feels shut off, cut off from God; who believes in God yet cannot find Him; who longs for the nearness of God but feels abandoned… hence the perplexed question, born of despair “When can I go and meet with God?”

 

“Where is your God?”

Verse 3: My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Did anyone promise that if you became a Christian you would never be unhappy, be constantly filled with joy, its not true, you will know pain, hurt and the mockers will line up and say “Where is your God?” when you stumble. The deep pain and hurt is pouring out tears that flood out day and night, no human comfort, no help in this time of trouble a sense of drowning, drowning, what hope.

Jesus tells us in John 6:35-38 “35. And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36; But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”

Jesus understands sorrow, hurt and rejection he will walk through the crowd of mockers and stone throwers and draw alongside and reach out into the darkness to the cowering figure heaped in a darken corner, “Come follow me, he will say and set the captive free”, he did for me he will for you

Jesus understood what this feels like Matthew 27:41–43 “41. Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, 42. “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. 43. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Our God lives with us, never leaves us and as the darkness falls is closer than any other, reach out and see