The Blessed Hunger

Do you find your own heart sensitive to the Lord’s presence, or are you among those who are “samplers” and “nibblers”? God help you if you are, for the child of the King isn’t a sampler and a nibbler—he’s a sheep who loves his Shepherd, and he stays close to his Shepherd. That’s the only safe place for a sheep—at the Shepherd’s side, because the devil doesn’t fear sheep—he fears the Shepherd. Your spiritual safety and well-being lies in being near to the Shepherd. Stay close to Jesus and all the wolves in the world cannot get a tooth in you. Psalm 23; John 10:11–15 The Counselor, 17.

A. W. Tozer

The book of Psalms is a book of praise and the psalmists use just about anything under the sun as a reason to glorify God.

How hungry are you? Depending on the time of day, the answer to that question varies. And one person’s sense of hunger differs from another. Circumstances can alter the asnwer too… for instance, if you were to do a fast, chances are that you will go through various points in which you are hungry, points where you get used to it and you don’t notice it as much as you thought you would, and eventually you start to understand what true hunger actually feels like. Certain smells can amplify the sensation as well… just walk by a bakery in the morning when they are baking bread, or one of my favorites is to smell the aromas coming from BBQ restaraunts that smoke meats. Combine the aromas with the fast and youur hunger can skyrocket off the charts!

But talking about physical hunger for a message seems a bit off and indeed, that is only the introduction to the real topic, namely spiritual hunger. How hungry are you for the things of God? Here is a list of some scriptures to wet the appetite for where we are going this morning.

Matthew 5:6 ““Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

John 4:11–14 “She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.””

John 6:35 “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

There are a great many more verses that I could bring up that talk about a spiritual hunger of one sort or another. It would be good for us to correctly identify what true spiritual hunger is though. I came across one quote that says the following:

It is easy to mistake curiosity for spiritual hunger.

François Fénelon

As we dive deeper into the passage this morning, there is a repeated phrase that reveals the Psalmists main point, and I think it would be good for us to use as our main point for today’s message as well. When you are down, even when you don’t understand why, trust in God and praise Him! He is your Savior and your God!

Yearning For God

Psalm 42:1–4 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.”

The Psalmist paints a beautiful picture using words that effectively touches the soul. I can’t help but hear in my mind the hymn that uses these lyrics… “as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs aftter you! You alone are my hearts desire and I long to worship you! Thirsting for the Lord as one thirsts for water. It relates a hard to understand spiritual truth with an easy to understand physical reality.

My soul thirsts for the living God… when shall I come and appear before God? It feels like there is so much going on behind the scenes. Why would the psalmist pen these words? We need to remember that worship in ancient Israel worked a little differently than it does for us in today’s modern context. For them, there would have been regular local gatherings, but the real worship events happened on national holidays where everyone would go to the Temple in Jerusalem and worship together. Some commentaries suggest that this is the worship the psalmist is talking about. Other commentaries suggest that this psalm was written at a time when he could not access the temple… perhaps like such a time when David fled from Jerusalem during his son, Absalom’s uprising.

The psalmist’s hunger for God is tangible as we read the words on the page. It is clear that he desires to be near God more than anything or anyone else.

Verse 5 is the refrain that is repeated later in the Psalm and should remind us about the nature of Hebrew poetry… namely that it is structural rather than rhythmic. And one note on the structural nature of this psalm… last Sunday, I mentioned that the Psalms are largely independent and one doesn’t necessarily build upon another, Psalm 42 and 43 might be an exception to this and I would encourage the curious to read Psalm 43 at another time as you will see the same verse repeated there, which might hint that these two psalms were originally written as one, and then later divided.

Back to the topic at hand… Psalm 42:5 “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence.”

I have found myself relating to this statement more and more lately. While overall, feeling fine and that things are going well, and yet feeling unsettled inside. I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the skeptic inside of me thinking that while everything might be going well, something is bound to go wrong. Or perhaps it’s the Holy Spirit preparing me for something immanent. Or maybe I ate something funky and my stomach is sending mixed up signals and is confusing my brain. Can most of us relate to what the psalmist writes about having his soul disturbed within?

But what comes next after he identifies the strange feeling inside? A declaration of trust and praise!

This is the main thought of the psalmist and the point which I want us to strive to internalize the most this morning. When something doesn’t feel right… whether you know what it is or not, put your hope in God and turst Him. Praise Him and declare the truth that He is your Savior and your God!

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of this fact. Sometimes we need to repeat it until the doubts within us subside.

Advice to the Downcast

Psalm 42:6–11 “O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

This next part of the psalm speaks of a pretty desparate situation. The psalmist describes despair and how he remembers the land… as though he can’t presently see the land of the Jordan. Verses 7-8 appeal to nature in order to describe that which God does for us. Appealing to watery imagery, waterfalls, breakers and waves evokes a sense of overwhelming power. Then the psalmist shifts his descriptors to that of the day and night cycle and ultimatley a declaration of trust in God no matter what time of day it might be.

Verses 9 & 10 really demonstrate the despaire of the psalmist. Whatever trials he may have been facing in life were clearly greater than he could bear at the moment and he left all of his feelings on the page. Jesus’ cry from the cross in Matthew 27:46 “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”” closely echo this Psalm, although Jesus directly quotes Psalm 22:1. The psalmist here feels forsaken by God and is heavily oppressed by enemies. He feels as though his enemies are mocking him at his injuries and they mockingly call out asking him where his God is.

But verse 11… again, a repeat of verse 5, is a declaration that even in the deepest pits of distress, the psalmist will trust in God. Even though his soul might be heavily disturbed within him, he will yet praise God and trust in His Savior!

Conclusion

As I bring this message to a close, I can’t get away from the beautiful imagery of how the passage started. While I am no hunter, I have still had several encounters with deer, and I’m not even talking about close calls on the roads. My memory of them is almost always at camp in the summer in the early morning before most anyone has awoken. It’s peaceful, calm, often foggy and the deer aren’t too far away… And usually there are some young ones in the mix. It’s a beautiful picture of God’s creation.

For the Psalmist to touch on that thought and to partner it with thirsting for God should stir up some impactful images in the mind whereby God’s majestic creation has everything it needs in God. So long as the deer has access to the waters, and so long as we have access to our God, all is well in the world… all is at peace.

And to think that the psalmist wrote these words coupled with more about being in despair, ought to cause us to wonder for a moment of why someone could still think of the goodness of God in the midst of bad things in life. Persecution will come… it might be obvious and outright, or it might be more subtle in nature, but we will be persecuted for our beliefs in God. Will it get to us or will we overcome? No matter the degree of trouble we face, we are always presented with the question of whether we can still turn to God… whether we will turn to God.

Despite being in despair, the psalmist declares that his hope is in God and that even though everything is going on the way it is, still he will praise God who is over all and his savior.

How do we now take this and apply it to our own lives? We of course have the benefit of knowing our Saviors name! Jesus Christ is our Savior and our God. We have a much more full revelation of who God is than the psalmist would have had access to at the time of the writing of this Psalm. We have the benefit of knowing that while the psalmist was here speaking, not only for himself, but for his nation, that we know that God’s blessings, provision and protection go beyond one nation and reaches to every nation through Jesus Christ.

If there were a challenge you could take away from today’s message, it would be this: strive to internalize the psalmists main point. Both verse 5 and 11 more or less repeat the same lines and we can use them in our own prayers.

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!” Commit this to memory. Pray it no matter your circumstances. Mean it no matter the circumstances. Even if you don’t understand why, say these words in your prayers anyway and God will take care of it all and walk you through the darkest of valleys back into the light of His love.