Psalm 42: Connecting with God in Our Sadness

RUF Wednesday Night Fellowship 11.3.21.

Psalm 42 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

1    As a deer pants for flowing streams,

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 say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

4    These things I remember,

as I pour out my soul:

       how I would go with the throng

and lead them in procession to the house of God

       with glad shouts and songs of praise,

a multitude keeping festival.

5    Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

       Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation 6 and my God.

       My soul is cast down within me;

therefore I remember you

       from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,

from Mount Mizar.

7    Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

       all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

8    By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

and 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 do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10    As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

       while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

11    Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

       Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.