Longing for God
I’ve noticed a change in my mom over the 10 months or so.
I grew up in one of those households where you went above, beyond, and out of your way . . . to show respect to mama.
And one of the ways I saw this carry on into my adult-life . . . is in the fact that since the year I graduated and left for college . . .
. . . my mom and I have had a pretty good habit of having regular phone calls.
But the thing about these calls is that out of however many hundred or thousand we’ve had . . . my mom might’ve initiated the call—meaning she called me without me having to call her . . . maybe 10 or 15 times.
It’s just always been kinda understood. We need to talk regularly. And Trell needs to be the one who makes the call.
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. . . . . . . . . . until about 10 months ago.
My son, Oakland, is 2 months old. He’s my mom’s first grandchild.
. . . and I’ve found it to be true that something happens to a woman when she becomes a grandma.
The day Lauren and I told my mom that we were pregnant . . . I started getting phonecalls!
And believe it or not . . . I also started getting text messages.
She’d call or text just to check in and see how we were doing.
Now, why is this? It’s not because she suddenly started to love her son a whole lot more . . . I’m pretty sure I’ve got nothing to do with it.
It’s because she now has a grandson.
And naturally for a grandmother, she has this longing to know what’s going on in her grandson’s life.
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Lauren and I send pics and videos—yanno kind tracking the growth and keeping our parents in the loop.
. . . and my mom’s response is always something along the lines of . . . “Oh I wish I lived closer!” “I just wish I could hold him!” “I wish I could see him more.”
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My mom doesn’t like the fact she and Oakland live so far apart.
She doesn’t like the feeling of him not being near.
She looks at pictures and when she thinks about him, she longs to actually be in his presence.
I think the author of Psalm 42 also knew a lil something about what it’s like to long to be in someone’s presence.
. . . But the thing is, he knew this longing in a much more significant way than I just finished talking about in my mom’s case . . . because he’s not talking about longing to be in the presence of another human . . .
. . . he’s talking about longing to be in the presence of God.
And I think that studying this passage and reading about how the Psalmist longed for God will teach us a few things.
There are 3 truths and 1 response to each truth, that every Christian should consider.
So here’s my outline up-front: 3 truths and 1 response to each truth that every Christian should consider:
Truth #1: There will be seasons where you feel distant from God Response: Acknowledge them!
Truth #2: There are identifiable sources to your seasons of distance from God. Response: Fight them!
o Sources:
▪ Our fallen flesh
▪ This fallen world
▪ The fallen angel, Satan
Truth #3: God is sure to rescue His people from their seasons of distance from Him.
Response: PRAISE HIM!
TRUTH #1
So, let’s begin looking at the text. We’ll first see truth #1: There will be seasons where we feel distant from God!
The Psalmist begins this Psalm by kinda describing what these seasons are like.
He gives this vivid description where he compares himself to a deer who is longing after flowing streams.
Look at verses 1-2, he says “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you God.” He says “I thirst for God, the living God.”
So the Psalm opens with the writer in this state of desperation and depression because he feels distant from God.
And now it’d be easy to read this and kinda downplay it or interpret this state of longing as a state where this deer is just a lil thirsty.
Yanno, we might picture a deer out frolicking in lily fields and being all majestic as he jumps and leaps . . . so he needs to go and take a few sips from a stream to quench his thirst.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . yea, I don’t think that’s what the Psalmist is gettin’ at . . . . . . .
. . . and I think we miss something if we write it off as it being that surface leveled. I want us to think about what the word “longing” actually means . . .
. . . and specifically in the life of a deer.
Some of you already know this: I’m an avid outdoorsman.
And one of my outdoor hobbies is the sport of deer hunting. ________________________
Lauren and I just bought a house.
So she’s still trying to decide where she wants to put pictures and frames and wall décor in our new home.
And so right now all of these pictures and wall décor is laying on the floor, leaned up against the walls that they’ll eventually be hung on.
And along with all of Lauren’s pictures and frames . . . is my contribution to the wall décor. It’s an 8-point deer that I killed a few years ago.
Now this deer is one of my all-time favorite trophies. I love looking at the thing on the wall and kinda reminiscing about how proud I was when I harvested him.
. . . but if I’m to be honest with myself, I didn’t have to work as hard to kill my deer as hunters from times of the past.
See hunters today are spoiled.
We’ve got all of this hi-tech hunting stuff like camo and hi-powered rifle scopes, and we’ve even got tree stands that allow us to sit 30 feet off the ground, and we hunt deer from trees like ninjas . . .
. . . None of this stuff existed just a few centuries ago . . .
So the guys that hunted before all of these modern inventions—they used to have to work hard for their deer.
Around the 15th century it became popular to hunt with dogs.
So hunters would get 5 or 6 dogs that they’d train to run in packs, and the way their hunts worked:
They’d turn the dogs out in the woods, the dogs would get onto a deer’s scent, follow the trail of the scent to the deer, and then when the deer was within view of the hunter, the dogs were supposed to surround the deer so he’d have nowhere to run, and then the hunter was supposed to pull his gun up, aim, and take a shot while the deer was trapped at a standstill. ___________________________
And so think about what it’s really like for a deer to long after streams. Deer have always been hunted by other predators.
These hunts sometimes go on for hours.
Predators show up and deer must run for their lives.
So if you’re a deer who spends a large percentage of your life running from predators . . . . . . I imagine you know what it’s like to be a lil thirsty.
See deer know that unique kind of thirst . . .
That thirst that I can remember from spring training in college football where your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth . . . and your spit turns cotton-white (what they call the cotton mouth) . . . and your throat gets to be so dry that if you try to swallow you gag because there’s no moisture to actually go down . . .
. . . and so you have this sincere yearning; this desperate desire; this overpowering sense of need for . . . a nice, refreshing, cold, quenching . . .
. . . a nice sip of water to quench your longing.
Something leads me to think that when the psalmist says “I long for God as a deer longs for flowing streams,” he isn’t saying “Man I miss God in the way that I want a sip of water when I’m a little parched.”
But I think he’s saying, “This separation from God has me feeling as if my life is on the line.”
I think he starts this Psalm, wanting us to know . . . that because he prays and feels like he can’t reach a place of intimacy with God . . . he feels as if he’s near death.
He desperately desires a sip from his stream, that he knows as God Almighty. The man has got a DESPERATE longing for God.
. . . and now the reason I’m taking so long to draw that out . . .
The reason I’m beating this drum right now . . . Longing for God! Longing for God! Longing for God!
The reason I’m emphasizing this one phrase . . . is because this Psalm, in the very first line forces us to pause and ask ourselves one of the best questions that a Christian can ask themselves:
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. . . and it’s simply this: Do I long for God in this way?
. . . I really want you to ask yourself that question!
Do you long for God like the Psalmist?
Do you long for God like a deer longs for streams when he’s on the run for his life?
Do you long for God as if you know He truly is the source of your life?
Do you long for God because you know He’s the One who sustains your faith?
Do you VIEW God rightly so that your view of Him cultivates this longing in your heart?
Christian—one who is saved by God— . . . . . . . . . . . do you have a deep longing for the very presence of your Savior?
That’s what the Psalmist is getting after.
The first thing he shows about himself . . . is that he’s a man. . . with a longing . . . for His God!
Fun fact about the Psalmist: If you look just under the title of the Psalm, you’ll probably see that it says “A maskil of the sons of Korah.”
That notation tells us that this psalm is written by one of the guys who were like musical worship leaders during the reign of King David.
These guys—the sons of Korah—they would lead big worship parties . . . and they’d lead ‘em at the temple, and everybody would come worship God together at the temple.
Well that eventually came to an end because there was this group known as the Babylonians who showed up and forced God’s people to leave their land, while also destroying . . . the temple.
Now, consider that about the temple and let’s look at verse 4.
“I remember this as I pour out my heart: How I walked with many, leading the festive procession
to the house of God (aka . . . the temple), with joyful thanks and shouts.”
So what the Psalmist is doing in verse 4 is he’s remembering a time in the past where he was close to God, he’d lead worship and others would grow close to God, he’d pray and be able to see that God heard his prayers, he was on fire for God, God was on fire in him, and everything was grand and great, and as sweet as he could imagine because he was close to God . . .
. . . but now he’s not there anymore.
The Babylonians and their destruction has made that a thing of the past. And that’s why he writes this Psalm.
See the Psalmist helps us see that he’s had experiences where he was closer to God before, but his enemies and other sinful effects have now robbed him of that closeness, so he feels distant from God, and it’s eating him alive.
I can imagine that all of us read this psalm and we know exactly what this feels like because we’ve been there before.
. . . Or better yet, many of us read it and we’re in that place right now . . . _____________________________
This would be like us sittin’ back and reminiscing and going:
“Man, before the coronavirus and the year 2020 . . . things were so great!”
We would come to church and there was only one service so we all got to be together at the same time.
And we’d sing and our singing was louder because we didn’t have to wear masks in church.
I could even go to the grocery store without wearing a mask so I wouldn’t get hot and sweaty just by grocery shopping.
Or . . . man, I had this community group and we could meet anywhere at anytime. We would meet every week and there was this great accountability and I was flourishing in the Lord because they were such a good encouragement for me to pursue Him.
We can go on and on about how life pre-COVID and pre-2020 was so great.
That is a reality for most people now—we have our pre-COVID lives that feel like distant memories . . . and we have our lives that we’re living today.
And I think this current time shows where truth #1 really kinda hinges and becomes a reality.
There will be seasons where we feel distant from God . . . but here’s why:
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We all know the Gospel teaches us that this world is a temporary place of settlement.
. . . and even though we’re being reconciled to God even in this moment . . . the time has not yet come for us to fully escape the sin and imperfections of this world.
. . . Theologians like to call it the “already, but not yet” state of tension.
So to kinda unpack what they mean: in Christ, We’re ALREADY saved, our victory is ALREADY won, we’re ALREADY been redeemed, we’ve ALREADY received justification by faith . . .
. . . but we are NOT YET fully redeemed and reconciled to our Creator.
So we have FULL redemption, but we’re seeing PARTIAL revelation of what that redemption looks like until we get to Heaven.
And our current state of living is no exception to the rule.
Coronavirus and all other sickness exists in this world because the world is tainted by sin.
. . . but God’s promises that He made way back in the garden of Eden—
the promise to restore man and reconcile man to Himself—freeing man of sin and it’s effects— those promises may NOT YET be complete, but they are ALREADY being fulfilled through Christ!
And so in this time of waiting, there are going to be seasons where we feel more distant from God than other seasons . . .
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The Psalmist walked through this after his enemies drove God’s people out of their land, and he’s showing us how to respond when we walk through these seasons.
So again—the response to truth #1: acknowledge the seasons of distance from God. Acknowledge it when you feel distant from God.
I think the 21st century culture has somewhat primed us to answer the question: “How are you?” without even thinking before we answer.
A lot of times we cut people off before they even finish the question: “How are . . . .” “Oh I’m fine!!! How are you? How’s the fam? Are they good too? We’re all good then. Yep. Blessed.”
We don’t wanna let our guards down and admit that not everything is always ok in our lives.
We shouldn’t be that way, and we definitely shouldn’t be that way with God, right? Scripture tells us to rejoice and give thanks in all things but it doesn’t tell us to be fake.
One of the negative effects of social media and modern-day advertising . . . is that we constantly see highlight reels . . .
. . . and so our concept of joy has become conflated with living amidst constant bliss and all things being good by the world’s standards.
But that’s not the type of joy that the Bible talks about!
When Paul says in Philippians 4 that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him . . . he’s not saying he can do whatever he wants and make sure things always feel good for him.
He’s trying to tell us that even amidst tough times he can praise God like He’s called to.
Paul wrote that because he knows that even during times like the times we see in the world right now . . .
. . . we can be in the worst of worst times, admitting that they’re the worst of worst times, yet still having a sense of settlement and joy because we know that God has given the comfort of all comforts by promising that our eternities will be the best of best times!
Look at what the psalmist does:
First he talks about how he’s longing like a deer
Then in verse 3 he says his tears have been his food, day and night
In verse 6 he just outright says “I am deeply depressed”
In verse 9 we see him ask God, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in
sorrow?”
Verse 10—“My adversaries taunt me as if crushing my bones”
He doesn’t try to act like everything’s ok as if God doesn’t already know.
He’s saying “God, look. I feel distant from you. This is terrible. I want to be close to you! Where . . . are . . . you?!”
He ACKNOWLEDGES the season of distance from God. And he calls his trial what it actually is.
And I want y’all to hear me say this: the very fact that God made it where THIS Psalm would be included in the bible—
. . . That communicates to us that He wants us to know . . . when we feel like the psalmist . . . when we feel like the effects of sin and brokenness has robbed us of our intimacy with God . . .
. . . God is already ahead of us . . . and He knows of our longing.
REPEAT: When we feel like the effects of brokenness are robbing us of God’s grace and closeness with Him, we need to remember that God is nearer than we think and He knows of our longing!
He hadn’t abandon the psalmist when he wrote this Psalm. And He hasn’t abandoned us now.
We NEED to ACKNOWLEDGE truth #1—that there will be seasons of distance from God . . . and then we also need to know the second truth.
Truth #2 again: There are identifiable sources to your seasons of distance from God.
I think this text teaches us about 3 specific sources that make us distant from God. We’ve already hinted at some of them, but to number them out as work through point 2: 1) Our Fallen Flesh
2) The Fallen World
3) The fallen angel, Satan himself.
For the first one, look back at verse 5 with me. The psalmist says “Why my soul are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil?”
So here we see the psalmist asking questions of his soul. The definition of that word “dejected” means to lack satisfaction, or be sad, or to feel unhappy.
So the psalmist is saying to his soul, why are you at this place of not finding satisfaction in God? And I know that may be strange because . . . how do you ask questions of your soul, right?
Like not only is he talking to himself, but he’s talking to his soul specifically.
. . . but I think if we take ourselves back to the basics of the Gospel;
if we remember just the fundamental truths of this great Book, then we see not only why the psalmist asks the question of HIS soul, but also why we need to ask OUR souls this same question from time to time.
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Remember that the first source for our seasons of distance from God is our fallen flesh. The Gospel tells us that we as people have been exposed to this stuff called sin . . .
. . . and now that we’ve been exposed to this stuff, we’re easily distracted from what our minds should focus on,
we’re prone to wander towards evil things in our desires;
and that whole NOT YET part of us—that part of us that’s still being reconciled to God—
it sometimes works against the part of us that knows the goodness of God and wants relationship with Him to be the focal point of our lives.
And when that happens it’s almost as if the fallen, fleshful, sin-desiring part of us is standing over there; we’re standing over here TRYING to be righteous in our desires; trying to pursue relationship with God . . .
. . . and it may be the case sometimes that we need to identify that part of ourselves as a source of distance from God, and then put ourselves at an objective place and say:
“Look! I’ve been bought by the blood of Christ, the Spirit of God now lives on the inside of me! Why don’t you get in line? GOD is my fulfillment so YOU need to quit seeking fulfillment in other things!”
We have to preach the Gospel to ourselves sometimes. That’s exactly what the Psalmist is doing here.
When he asks this question of himself, he’s talking about the part of himself that desires anything outside of relationship with God.
He’s preaching the truth about God to His soul, and we need to preach it to Our souls too! Our fallen flesh WILL often be a source of distance from God.
And another source we find in verse 7. The second source is the fallen world.
In verse 7, the psalmist says “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your billows have swept over me.”
Now this isn’t as clear as the first source was, but to understand it we need to go back to the basics of the Gospel again.
Like we talked about earlier . . . not only are human beings affected by fallenness and sin, but everything else in this world is too.
Back in Genesis, after Adam and Eve had sinned, God told Adam: “The ground is now cursed.”
He says you’ll still be able to eat and the ground will still produce food for you and your family, but you’re gonna have to work for it—and the work is gonna be tough. There’s gonna be thorns and thistles for you to pick around in order for you to harvest your food.
. . . So this good thing: the natural, food producing land itself is now tainted by sin and it makes work difficult, and it takes the fun out of our work, and it can lead to depression and distance from God because it too is now a distraction.
In verse 7 when the psalmist says “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your billows have swept over me.”
I think he’s using metaphors to say:
I have this deep longing for you; this deep longing within me is calling out to experience the depths of your love, but these good things that you created, God: waterfalls, breakers and billows (all of these large bodies of water that can harm me) . . . he says they’re crashing over
me and he’s illustrating that even good things are causing chaos in his life and making it difficult to experience an intimate time with God!
So for us, it’d be like saying:
“Man, I love my schoolwork. I’m so glad that God blessed me with the chance to study and receive a valuable education. . . but when school gets busy and I have so much homework, man it can really get in the way of my quiet-time.
Or here’s another example:
“Man, this job is pretty cool. I enjoy seeing the Lord provide through this form of employment . . . but when this job stuff gets busy . . . man I may look up and have gone a week without even touching my bible.”
. . . these good things—school and work—making it hard to remain intimate with God.
Or even in thinking about the recent election: We look at both political parties and we see that they’re both flawed and imperfect . . . but the concept of government is a good thing that comes from God Himself.
. . . and so when we look at things like this, we’re reminded that this is a fallen world . . .
. . . and although jobs, and school, and government—although these are all good things— they’re tainted by the fallenness of this world, and they can sometimes lead to chaos in life . . . that may distance us from God.
So the first source of distance from God: Our fallen flesh
The second source of distance from God: the fallen world and the third source of distance from God: the devil himself.
In verse 9, the psalmist asks God why he must go about in sorrow because of the ENEMY’s oppression . . .
. . . and then he mentions how he’s taunted by adversaries that wanna remind him of his distance from God.
The basic Gospel also teaches that the reason sin entered the world is because there was an enemy who tricked Adam and Eve into sinning for the first time.
That enemy is still trying to trick God’s people today.
That enemy WILL want to taunt you when you’re in a rough spot, he WILL want to taunt you when you feel depressed, he WILL want to taunt you when you feel distant from God . . .
. . . but we must respond to the enemy, the 3rd source of distance from God . . . in the same way that we need to respond to the first 2 sources.
We need to respond to truth #2 by FIGHTING the sources of our distance from God.
After the psalmist mentions his dejected soul in verse 5, he tells his soul to put it’s hope in God, then he says For I will STILL PRAISE Him, my Savior and my God.
In verse 6 after he says “I am deeply depressed,” He goes on to say “therefore I REMEMBER YOU from the land of Jordan, and the peaks of Hermon, from mount Mizar.”
He’s talking about remembering the time that he was close to God.
After he mentions the waterfalls and breakers and billows in verse 7, he follows up in verse 8 by reminding himself that “The Lord will send His faithful love by day”
. . . then he takes it further by saying what HE is gonna do; he says “God’s song is gonna be with me in the night—a prayer to the God of my life.”
So he’s making it clear: God will eventually send His love and renew my intimate connection with Him . . .
. . . but even when times are tough, and I don’t feel as close to Him as I wanna be . . . I’m singing and praising God anyways.
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After he talks about the enemy and the adversaries in verses 9-10, he says the same thing that he does after he talks about his dejected soul in verse 5; he says again “Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.”
The psalmist resolves to fight these sources of distance from God by:
Reminding himself of God’s goodness
Praying to God when it’s hard
Praising God even though it’s hard
HOPING in God, despite what he currently feels . . .
Now why does he do this? Well he does it because of truth #3.
Truth #3 is simply this: God is sure to rescue His people from their seasons of distance from Him.
All throughout this psalm, we see the psalmist refer to God as:
My Savior
My Rock
The God of my life
The reason he does this is because he’s believing the end of the Gospel story;
. . . he’s believing that God is going to send a King named Jesus to sacrifice Himself on a cross so that this distance from Him—this distance from God and each of the sources that are mentioned that put us at distance from God—so they can be wiped out and done away with once and for all.The good thing about the “Already But Not Yet” is that it WILL eventually become the “Already And Complete.”
We’re all yearning for closeness to God. God is aware of it, and we can continue in hope that
through Christ Jesus there is a coming time where we will be closer with Him than we’ve ever
been before.
So let’s decide NOW that when things are tough and we feel like the psalmist felt—depressed—
distant from God—dehydrated in our relationship with God—
. . . when we’re in those seasons . . .which I’m sure some of us are right now . . .
let’s resolve to . . . acknowledge the distance, fight against the things that make us distant, and