Psalm 42

Psalm 42[a][b]

    For the director of music. A maskil[c] 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[d] with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.

For some reason this makes me think of one of our dogs. One of our dogs, Sera, seems to have chosen me as her primary person, while Brad has chosen my wife. Sera displays incredible devotion and patience and love for me. Sometimes I think about how we treat the dogs and whether God treats us that way. It pleases me to see Sera look at me and wag her tail. I'm sure it pleases God to see me focus on him and enjoy focusing on him. Do I spend enough time focusing on God and enjoying his presence? Nope. But that's why I'm writing this. This is the best way I can think of, given who I am, to do that.

I have also learned something from our animals and I'm sure God loves this way: when someone comes to you with need or in love, that is the time to respond. When someone needs you, if you love them, you respond right then- no matter what. Obviously, if the house is literally on fire, that takes priority. But the point is that I used to think "hey it's great you love me, or I see you need something, but it's not convenient for me right now. I'll get to you later" and then I'd notice, particularly with the love, that they had less enthusiasm later when I wanted to pet them. The momentary enthusiasm of affection is a blessing, and should be enjoyed in that moment. If it doesn't feel convenient to you, remember that convenience is about your wants, and love is about giving. Sacrifice your wants and enjoy that love.

 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.

I love this line from Oswald Chambers: "Anytime I am dejected, it is because I have satisfied a lust or been denied a lust". [If you haven't read a lot of 19th century Christian stuff or haven't delved into Bible word definitions, know that lusts in the Bible are any selfish WANTS, not just sex. I would rather call them selfish wants, but a lot of people want to debate what is selfish and what is not. These people, in my experience, have not done an unsparing introspective review of their character in the ruins created by their own extreme selfishness. In other words, their normal selfishness is still working for them and hasn't been overcome by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, which as far as I know, is up to God to initiate.]

What we want is not necessarily God's will. Christians like Chambers and George Mueller seem divided on whether we should pray for things, worldly things- they might be lusts. Sometimes we don't really know the true motivations of our hearts. "This is for them," we cry, but really it's to glorify ourselves and our ministry and we don't even realize it. I've been guilty of frustration and self-righteous speech and alienating people while in this sort of blindness.

What I know for sure is that if I keep God and Jesus and the Spirit more in mind, prayerfully considering my day as it goes, staying off long blind pursuits of lusts, then my day is better, I feel better, and I am more likely to have that prayer of gratitude to God at night, I sleep better, I wake and remember God more quickly, perhaps I even dream of godly things in the interim...

 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?”

These days, if you talk too deeply of Christianity with non-believers, there are so many pitfalls. When you open up as you would with a brother or sister, you find them misunderstanding. They see Christian strength as weakness, and self-appraisal as self-doubt or insecurity. To use an overused word, the paradigm is so different, it's upside down. They can't really get it. Nor can they understand that God might leave us alone for a while to renew our focus on Him and our faith. They see faith as a fiction. They think we're stupid, we believe a myth, we act helpless when we could simply master the world with wordly tactics as they do.

It's hard - almost impossible- for us to choose the Matthew 5 beatitude experience when we have so many worldly strategies and tactics and systems that work to get us some measure of our lusts. Even we may find our faith lacking when we consider taking that very different, seemingly risky approach to our lives.

How do we begin? Maybe it's by making the hard choices. We stop taking on things that aren't godly. We stop doing things that aren't godly to keep things we want. We lose things in order to obey God. That's tough.

 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.