A Life Worth Living

Psalm 42:1–11 NKJV

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul 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 continually say to me, “Where is your God?” When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance. O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar. Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me— 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 with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.

The opening lines of this Psalm are as much revealing as they are poetic!

The Psalmist writes that his thirst for God is compared to the thirst of the deer.

And as the water from the brook quenches the thirst of the deer, God himself quenches the thirst of my soul!

There is also an intimation here as to why the deer pants for the water brook, it is weary from the vigilance it is forced to live by because of man’s sin!

We also are forced into this vigilant state because we live in a wilderness where dangers are ever present.

Dangers that would consume us!

I. The enemy hunts the precious life.

A. He lays out traps to cage us.

B. He desires to take from us even that which God has reserved for Himself.

C. He loves for God’s children to live in fear and desperation.

D. He desires for us to see nothing but ugliness.

He is so good at disguising his tactics and methods of stalking us, that he can overwhelm us with thoughts of doom and blind us to the freedom that is with Jesus Christ.

II. The precious life is found in communion with God.

A. In Him we find comfort and purpose.

B. In Him we know what truth is.

C. In Him we are reminded that He watches and cares for me.

D. In Him we are strengthened and endure.

Why would people attempt suicide?

Why would a Christian use suicide as an escape?

Because the ugliness and despair of life can cause such nearsightedness, and our adversary the devil capitalizing upon that situation, will prevent one from ever looking up to where our help comes from.

The writer of this psalm asks himself several times why his own soul is cast down despite the power and majesty of God.

But he also reminds himself multiple times that he will look to God and trust in Him!

Sometimes we must remind ourselves over and over again, that God loves us, and He will lift us up!