Psalm 42 - Public Worship

Psalm 42:1-4, 8-9, 11 NIV

As the deer pants for streams of water, 

so my soul pants for you, my God. 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

When can I go and meet with God? 

My tears have been my food day and night, 

while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 

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. 

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— 

a prayer to the God of my life. 

I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? 

Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” 

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.

Psalm 42 is a beloved psalm which has inspired modern songs like As The Deer by Marty Nystrom.

As the deer panteth for the water 

so my soul longeth after Thee. 

You alone are my heart's desire 

and I long to worship You.

The picture of a natural thirst for God is beautiful and stirring. The words touch something deep down reminding us of our need for God.

The writer of the psalm celebrates good memories of going to the temple with God's faithful singing in celebration! I too have wonderful happy memories singing hymns of praise in my old country church and Buckskin, Indiana. Church is where I learned to sing in the first place. I stood on the pew, a little boy next to my parents, Singing right along with the rest of the congregation. My heart was filled with joy. I was only doing what was natural.

We were made to worship God. Worship is essential to expressing our need and our love for our Creator. There's a power in public worship that you cannot access on your own. Even though you may lie in your bed at night with a prayer in your heart and a song in your head, the means of grace that public worship brings cannot be matched by your personal devotional life.

You are free to disagree with me. There are mystics who lived alone in a life of solitude in the desert who reached incredible heights of spiritual maturity, but for me I believe public worship is where we most profoundly meet the living God.

I love how the psalmist consoled himself with the hope that one day he will again find in his heart a reason to praise God. He seems to be in exile or something separated from Jerusalem and the people God has chosen.

How often do you feel as if you are isolated and estranged from God and everything good? Perhaps it's time to go to church? It's only natural.