The Heat Of Our Desire

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. – Psalm 42:1


Pastor A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) read the great Christian theologians until he could write about them with ease. He challenges us: “Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the hear of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter of the long seeking.”

The writer of Psalm 42 had the kind of longing for the Lord that Tozer spoke about. Feeling separated from God, the psalmist used the simile of a deer panting with thirst to express his deep yearning for a taste of the presence of God. “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” (w. 1-2). The heat of his desire fr the Lord was so great and his sorrow so intense, he did more weeping than eating (v.3). but the psalmist’s longing was satisfied when he placed his hope in God and praised Him for His presence and help (w. 5-8).

O that we would have a longing and thirsting for Him that is so intense that others would feel the heat of our desire for Him! – Marvin Williams


My heart’s desire is to know You, Lord,
To walk close beside You today;
To know Your grace, Your love, Your power,
For You are my life and my way. – Cetas

Only Jesus, the Living Water, can satisfy the thirsty soul.

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Psalm 42

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants after you, God. My soul thirsts for God, for he living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, How I used to go with the crowd, and led then to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day. Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.

My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, The heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.

Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: A prayer to the God of my life. I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” as with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, While they continually ask me, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me?

Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, The saving help of my countenance, and my God.

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