Title: Seek God Himself (Psalm 42:1)
Contents
“As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul thirsts for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).
1. Text commentary
Psalm 42, together with Psalm 43, vividly shows how a longing for God can arise and work in God's children. The title reads ‘Masgil of the descendants of Kora’, which means ‘Writing to become wise’. This psalm appears to have been written by one of the descendants of Korah who accompanied David when he went into exile because of Absalom's rebellion. The most urgent prayer topic for them was probably the restoration of the king when the king was expelled from the throne, but in the first verse, the poet earnestly appeals to the condition of his soul that prevents him from seeing God.
2. A generation without holy longing
1) A generation that does not dance even when playing the flute
Today's generation is a generation without holy longing. This situation was also present in the time of the coming of Jesus. That is why Jesus lamented, “It is like saying, “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance; we wept, but you did not beat our hearts” (Matthew 11:17). God showed His heart aching for the people through Jesus, but the people did not grieve.
A filial son is a child who knows the heart of his parents. The filial son is the son who finds out the reason when his father hurts and suffers more from the fact that he hurt his father. We too must live a life of faith in which we deeply know, understand, and realize the heart of God. In this age when we play the flute but do not dance, weep but do not beat our hearts, we must repent of our sin of not longing for God. All life of faith without the heart of seeking God is false and hypocritical. How much do we live a life of faith that understands the heart of God?
2) The blessing of the poor heart
In order for us to understand God's heart and become those who seek God, we must first become poor in our hearts. When Jesus spoke of the Beatitudes, He said that the poor in spirit belong to the kingdom of heaven. The word “poor” is “ptokos” (προτ σσω) in Greek, which means “declared bankrupt.” Became like a person who has been declared bankrupt, and now God visits those who have no hope and no one to depend on except the Lord. But our poor heart is disappearing. We must be people who look back on how we looked for God in the past and return to that heart.
3. Like a deer longing for a stream
1) Palestinian background
The poet compares his thirst to seek God to the deer's thirst for a brook. In autumn, the mating season, the deer exhibit a physical characteristic, which is a burning thirst. However, there is not much water in the wilderness of Palestine, so the time spent searching for water increases, and when the thirst intensifies, nothing is seen. There seems to be a spring over there, so if you run, there is no spring, so there are many deer that instinctively dig into the ground with their front paws and die. The poet must have seen many corpses of such dead deer. That is why he is comparing his thirst to seek God to a deer. Just saying, “It is difficult because there is no God’s grace” is not thirsty. Among us, our thirst for only God like a poet is disappearing. Without longing for God, hatred for their own sins, or the ability to discern the temptations of the world, they are just carried away by the wind.
2) The essence of longing for God Himself: love
The essence of holy longing is love. So, the life of faith without longing for God is not a life of a little lack of something, but a life of very bad faith. If you do not desire God, it is because you do not love Him. Two defining characteristics of love are rejoicing and cherishing. First, love is the joy of being together. The poet went into exile to a foreign land and became unable to worship. His joy when he was with God turned into sorrow because he could not be with God. When you can't meet God, are you thirsty for it? God knows who seeks you in unbearable pain. Second, if you love, you value the object. And he will live with a weeping heart, until he is cherished not only by himself, but also by everyone in the world. God wants us to live a life of faith with this longing.
4. The God the poet longed for: the living God
The God the poet longs for is a living God (verse 2). It is longing for the living God. God lives, isn't it so obvious? But only when we are in grace can our hearts feel that God is alive and that He comes to us and gives us victory in every situation of life. That is why the poet longs for the living God.
We cannot feel the living God while we are captivated by the sin that dwells within us. For sin quenches the fire of God's longing. Therefore, we need grace. We say, “Without the Lord we cannot live and we cannot die.” We must live by faith with a heart of We must become believers who repent of our sins of not seeking or longing for God and pray that they will become people who long for God's grace.