Contents Acknowledgments... 8 Introduction... 9 1 BECOMING RIGHT WITH GOD Psalm 32... 15 2 WAITING FOR THE LORD Psalm 130... 33 3 NIGHT THOUGHTS Psalm 4... 51 4 A MORNING MEDITATION Psalm 5... 65 5 LONGING FOR GOD Psalms 42 and 43... 81 6 A PLEA FOR DELIVERANCE FROM SLANDER Psalm 7... 109 7 A BLAZING SONG OF JOY Psalm 84... 125 8 PRAYING OUR ANGER Psalm 137... 143 9 THE GOD WHO KNOWS ME Psalm 139... 173 10 OUR MIGHTY FORTRESS Psalm 46... 191 11 TEACH US TO PRAY... 205 Appendix: Guide for Small Group Leaders... 213 Notes... 217 Annotated Bibliography... 221
81 F I V E T Longing for God Psalms 42 and 43 he opening lines of Psalm 42 are among the most poignant lines in all of poetry: As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. These lines arrest our attention. Then, verse by verse, the psalm holds our attention as it both reveals the soul of the psalmist and probes our own souls. We should come away from praying this psalm with a deeper grasp of our own self and a stronger sense of our need for the presence of God. Each time I read Psalms 42 and 43, the impact of that reading is added to the impact of former readings. Phrase after phrase reminds me of what I have read before but had receded to the dimly lit warehouse of my memory. But as you are praying through the psalms, you are seeing this for yourself. Two words of warning. First, Psalms 42 and 43 are more complex in both structure and meaning than the previous psalms. Be prepared to spend more time in reading before beginning to pray. Second, Psalms 42 and 43 are especially relevant to those who are disappointed or de- pressed. The guided prayer assumes that this issue will be relevant to many, though perhaps not all, readers.
82 THIRSTING FOR GOD INITIAL READING OF PSALM 42 From even a cursory examination of the texts, it seems obvious that Psalms 42 and 43 are really one psalm. And scholars largely agree. Both the formal structure and the intellectual content confirm this judgment. So we will read them as a unit. Psalm 42 (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, O 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 men 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 with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? my Saviour and 6 my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon from Mount Mizar.
LONGING FOR GOD 83 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 are you downcast, O my soul? my Saviour and my God. Psalm 43 1 Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men. 2 You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? 3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain,
84 THIRSTING FOR GOD to the place where you dwell. 4 Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? my Saviour and my God. When you read this just now, did you read it aloud? If not, do so now. Then read it silently several more times. Observe what verse(s), ideas or images seem to stand out most. INITIAL IMPRESSIONS With each reading, what attracts my attention at one time may not at all be what attracts me at another. The opening lines, however, always stand out: 1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Each time I read this, there is at once a recognition that I too long for, thirst for, the living God; and then immediately follows the recognition that if I really did long for the living God as a deer pants for streams of water, God would be present to my consciousness far more than he is. So the psalm sets me up to recognise a paradox that I live with whenever I turn my attention toward it: I long for the presence of God. I do not long for the presence of God.
LONGING FOR GOD 85 At times when I am deliberately disobeying (and I do that; don t you?) I don t want God to be present at all. The question When can I go and meet with God? is not the one in my heart, for I know the answer. The answer is Anytime! The answer is Now. The more I read the psalm, the more I am conscious of this schism in my soul. And the more I need to continue to read and absorb the psalm, for there is a division in the psyche of the psalmist too. Three times the psalmist asks himself the same question. Three times he answers the same way. 5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? my Saviour and 6 my God. Of course, these lines are a refrain. Poems sometimes have refrains. They have a formal function in the poem. Why make any more of them than that? In great poetry, the content of a refrain and the necessity of its repetition yield a significance of sense. So it does here. The psalmist reveals that he himself is divided. One aspect of himself (unnamed) addresses another aspect of himself (his soul). Bemused and troubled about his depression, he asks his soul to put its hope in God, and he vows to praise God as my Saviour and my God. Thus the downcast soul seeks solace in praising his God as his Saviour. The psalmist speaks the lines of this refrain without hesitation and with authority. He knows this is the right path to take, and so do I, both from the implicit authority I accord the Scriptures and from the experience of having followed the psalmist s lead before. As I reflect on the many times I have read and reread Psalm 42, my impression is that the opening lines and the refrain are its core
86 THIRSTING FOR GOD that if we would only absorb and live by these words, our lives and the lives of many others would benefit. But, of course, the psalm has much more to offer, and more than these lines stand out. MISUNDERSTANDING THE DEEP This psalm is one of my favourites. I enjoy contemplating philosophical issues. Once when I was dealing with the relationship between the surface of life (the impressions made on us through our five senses) and the depths of being itself (the isness of what is), verse 7 jumped off the page for me: 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. Deep calls to deep, I read. What deep? In the metaphor of the psalm the deep, I thought, is the ocean deep and God himself beneath the ocean deep. This deep calls to other depths, my depths. Or, in less metaphorical terms, the foundations of reality (ocean depths), created by and present to God himself, call to the foundations of my being (my depths), likewise created by God. Moreover, in the foundation of my being (my depths) is found the unity of my soul and the unnamed part of me that speaks to my soul. In the language of verse 7, therefore, I felt my divided self both unify and be brought into communion with God and his created order. I saw myself grounded (to shift the metaphor) in God. God is there in the depths of the created order, I thought, and God is there in the depths of my own being. So fully is God there that his waterfalls roar and his waves swamp me with their presence. As I contemplated this image, I was reminded of a dream a few nights before. I was in a cottage near a seashore and a twenty foot sea surge swept over the cottage. Of course, I woke up