Thirst

When unfairly targeted or excluded, we can easily slip into depression, which makes it painful to remember all we’ve lost. That’s when we must hold onto the truth that our God hasn’t abandoned us.

A descendants of Korah psalm.

¹ Like a deer pants for rippling brooks
so my soul longs for you, O God!
² My whole being thirsts
for the God who is my life.
When will I behold his face again?
³ Day and night
I’ve had nothing to eat but salt tears
thanks to my enemies’ incessant taunting
“Where’s your God now?”
⁴ I ache to think how I used to lead
the pilgrim throng to your house
swept along in the joyful din
of our songs of worship and thanks.

⁵ Why are you so downcast, my soul?
Why in such turmoil?
Hope in God!
I will yet praise him for rescuing me—
being my God.

⁶ Depressed as I am
I think of you wherever I go
from the Jordan trough to lofty Mount Hermon
to the last little no-name hill.
⁷ One churning plunge-pool calls to the next
in the roar of your waterfall
only then for your raging rapids
to pummel and pound me and spit me out.
⁸ Yet Yahveh sends me
tokens of his unfailing love by day
and puts his song in my heart by night—
a prayer to the God who is my life.

⁹ I cry to my rock face of a God
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I tramp about in gloom
harassed by my enemies?”
¹⁰ Their relentless taunts murder[1] my bones:
“Where’s your God now?”

¹¹ Why are you so downcast, my soul?
Why in such turmoil?
Hope in God!
I will yet praise him
for coming to my rescue—
being my God.

The psalmist is deeply depressed. His cross-country trip is no sightseeing excursion. He’s running for his life, his enemies hounding him at every turn. He’s pained to remember the good times, when he led happy pilgrim throngs to God’s house. Now his enemies’ taunts make him feel like he’s dying, as they exclude him from that holy place—to them, clear proof that God has abandoned him.

In fact, he knows they’re wrong: God hasn’t abandoned him. Through his tears, he sees God as fully present, at work in his life. Roughing him up—disciplining him. But also sending him clear tokens of his love each new day and giving him God-songs, like this one, in the night.

Wonderfully, the psalmist knows he’s made for intimacy with God, can’t live without him. So he does the two things he needs most to do. He talks to God, rock-solid dependable, pouring out his longing for him. He also takes himself in hand. Since depression locks us into ourselves, our overpowering emotions and our often-faulty mental narratives, he engages in self-talk, redirecting his thoughts to God, his only hope. And he does both things multiple times because depression never gives way easily.

I long for you, O God. Without you, I’m locked into grief, into myself. A voice inside says you’ve sidelined me—are done with me. But you say, “Never!” Now that you’ve got my full attention, you’re beginning anew. I will yet praise you for rescuing me, being my God. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray these words:

Like a deer pants for rippling brooks, so my soul longs for you, O God!

[1] This, the verb’s literal meaning, suggests that the psalmist feels his foes’ murderous intent in his bones (Robert Alter, 151).

Book II is comprised of Psalms 42 through 72. Psalm 2 begins Book I by pointing out the intimate relationship between God and the Davidic king and Psalm 72 ends book II by reinforcing that point. But many of Book II’s psalms are personal laments that anticipate the national crisis which Psalm 89, at the end of Book III, laments. Psalm 51, for example, gives us David’s all too-human confession of sin after committing adultery and engineering his faithful servant Uriah’s death. In other words, these psalms reveal the flawed and broken nature of the Israelites and their Davidic kings that would eventually demand God’s discipline in the exile and Jerusalem’s fall.

Do as God does to be as God is

With enough strikes against us, we feel like giving up. For example, when we’re ill and someone wants to sideline us. That’s when we need to remind ourselves that our gracious God won’t ever abandon us.

A David psalm.

¹ How enviable are
those who care for the poor!
Yahveh rescues them
when trouble strikes.
² Yahveh protects them
and restores them to life.
They’re considered
the luckiest people around.
You don’t hand them over to their enemies.
³ Yahveh nurses them on their sickbed
restoring them to full health.

⁴ As for me, I said
“O Yahveh, be gracious to me.
Heal me, sinner that I am.”
⁵ My enemies maliciously ask
how long till I die
and my name is forgotten.
⁶ When they visit me
they mouth empty words
all the while gathering gossip
which they then go and blab everywhere.
⁷ Everyone who hates me
whispers together about me
imagining the worst—
⁸ that I’m in some plague’s death-grip
and will never get out of bed again.
⁹ Even my best friend
has turned on me—
the one I trusted completely
who ate at my table.
¹⁰ But you, Yahveh,
be gracious and raise me up again
so I can return the favor to them.

¹¹ This is how I know
you’re on my side:
you haven’t let my enemies
triumph over me.
¹² Instead, because of my integrity
you stand by me and welcome me
in your presence forever.
¹³ May Yahveh, Israel’s God
be blessed forever and ever.
Yes! Amen!

As with Psalm 1, this psalm declares who this world’s really fortunate people are. And again, it singles out people no one would normally pick. What makes those who care for the poor so blessed? God. Because they care for the poor like God does, he’s there for them when trouble strikes them. He protects them from harm and heals their diseases.

But David isn’t waxing philosophical here. He’s desperately ill and far from the perfect role model he’d like to be. Yet he doesn’t barter for his life. He simply asks God for mercy. Those who surround him wait, like vultures, for him to die. Eager to divide the spoils. They gossip, “He’s got one foot in the grave!” Even his trusted friend has turned on him. So in his weakness, David asks God to enable him to execute judgment on them.

And the fact that his enemies haven’t won yet—since he’s still alive—tells him God sees past his faults to the kind of man he is. Because he’s becoming like God, he’s confident God won’t ever abandon him. And for that, David will never stop praising him.

I want to be like you, God. To be remade in your likeness. To have your moral character, to be holy. Yet I’m surrounded by vultures who only want me dead. But not you, Lord—your welcome never wears out! So please forgive my sins, heal me and make me new. Amen.

In your free moments today, meditate on this truth:

How enviable are those who care for the poor!

God cares about the humble poor

Recalling God’s past deliverance can strengthen our faith when facing another crisis. Rededicating ourselves to trust and obey is vital too. David does both while urgently asking for God’s help.

A David psalm. 

¹ I waited and waited for Yahveh
and he bent down and heard my cry.
² He pulled me up out of the desolate pit
out of its muck and its mire.
He planted my feet on solid rock
and made my footing sure.
³ He gave me a brand-new song to sing
a song of praise to our God.
Many looked on, awestruck
and put their trust in Yahveh.

⁴ How fortunate are those
who put their trust in Yahveh
not in false gods or false guides!
⁵ You, Yahveh, my God
have done many miracles for us.
And there’s no one whose plans for us
begin to compare with yours.
I couldn’t begin to list them all
for they’re innumerable.

⁶ You take no delight
in mere sacrifice or offerings.
No, you’ve opened my ears to hear—
it’s not burnt-offerings
or sin offerings you’re after.
⁷ So I said, “Here I am.
I’ve come to do what the scroll[a] asks of me.”
⁸ I delight to do your will, O God.
I hold your Torah in my heart
not just my hands.

⁹ I’ve told the good news of your faithful rescue
to your assembled people.
I’ve held nothing back, as you know, Yahveh.
¹⁰ I haven’t kept to myself
word of how you save the helpless.
I’ve spoken of your faithfulness
in rescuing me.
I haven’t hidden
your unfailing love or faithfulness
from the great congregation.
¹¹ You won’t withhold your compassion
from me, Yahveh.
Your unfailing love and faithfulness
will keep me safe forever.

¹² But countless troubles have engulfed me!
I can’t see any way out
as my sins have caught up with me.
They outnumber the hairs on my head
and my heart fails me.

¹³ Rescue me, Yahveh!
Hurry, Yahveh, and help me!
¹⁴ Let shame and confusion overtake
all those who seek to destroy me.
Rout in humiliation
all who want to see me hurt.
¹⁵ May all who revel in my ruin
be devastated by their own humiliation.
¹⁶ But may everyone who seeks you
be glad and rejoice in you.
Let all who love what you’re doing
to save humankind
say, “Yahveh is great!”

¹⁷ Poor and needy as I am
the Lord cares about me.
You’re my help and my deliverer.
My God, don’t delay![b]

David celebrates a time when God rescued him and set his feet on solid ground, recalling how he sang a new song because—as with Miriam at the Red Sea—nothing else would do. And after accepting God’s rescue, it would have been unthinkable to pretend it didn’t happen and not publicly praise God.

David is loyal to God alone. He knows worship without the heart doesn’t please God. So he listens with the ears God has opened, obeys and, even more, longs—like a lover—to please his Lord. And in an act of self-offering, he devotes himself wholly to God, assuring him that his law shapes his thoughts and desires.

But David faces wave after wave of opposition and his innumerable sins entangle him. So God’s having set his feet on solid rock one day doesn’t mean he won’t have to cry to him from the watery depths the next.[c] He’s in deep trouble again. Feeling hopeless, his courage failing him, he can turn only to the God who graciously rescues the undeserving. Marveling that the Creator cares for such a poor and needy soul, he once more urges him to help him without delay and puts his hope in him.

Help me turn to you, God, when I’m over my head, weak and failing, opposed by those glad to see me to fail. You don’t want me just going through the motions. You want my ears, my heart. To change me, inside and out. Help me always, Lord, to hope in your unfailing love. Amen.

Whenever you have a free moment today, pray these words:

“I delight to do your will, O God. I hold your instruction in my heart.”

[a] David may be presenting to God his own copy of Deuteronomy—as representing the entire Torah, which was too big for a single scroll—and committing to follow it in obedience to the commandment in Deuteronomy 17:18-20: “When [the king] takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left” (NIV). Besides the instruction for kings (Dt. 17:14-20), Deuteronomy includes the Shema: “You shall love Yahveh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Those passages alone would have been vital to David as king. He sees this whole-hearted presentation of himself as the best offering to accompany his urgent request in vv. 12-17. He may be doing this as he takes the throne in Hebron or later over the entire nation, always aware of his many enemies.

[b] The fact that a slightly redacted version of vv. 13-17 appears as Psalm 70 speaks to the versatility of the passage.

[c] Jacobson (2014) 383.