“Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” Psalm 42:5
Dear Ones:
Thirsting after God is a wonderful thing. Why? First of all, it is a thirst that is given BY God to reveal our need of Him. And secondly, it is the call of God to the heart, to reveal His desire and will to meet that thirst. The Psalmist, in speaking of this thirst after the living God, reveals that it is sometimes born in adversity, when there is no other “help.” The unveiled need of the soul and heart responds by the Psalmist’s words: “I pour out my soul within me.” (v.4) There is the profound, personal, pursuit of the Person of God, of Christ. That which is so very encouraging about this sense of need, sometimes acute and strong, is that God “waits to be wanted,” waits to respond to the individual’s heart cry. And this He WILL do. So then, what is the confidence of the believer who is thirsty? What does he do in order for God to truly meet him?
The first thing is the commitment of the heart to believe in God. There might be the tendency, in the crucible of circumstances, for the believer to “cast away one’s confidence.” The psalmist starts in his pursuit of God with an attitude of faith, the same that Jesus spoke about to His disciples: “Have faith in God.” The psalmist says: “Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” Here is faith, in the faithfulness of God, a God who is merciful and gracious, who delights to meet the needs of the heart and soul.
The second thing that the psalmist does is to REMEMBER. What does he remember? God Himself. “I remember THEE.”(v. 6) It is in the remembrance of God, and His dealings with those who have gone before, or even, in the present life of the believer, that inspires one to look heavenward, in the expectation of the certainly of God’s intervention.
Thirdly, there is a coming to grips with the word of the Lord, the promises and commandments of God. The believer KNOWS that what Christ commands, that will He do. So the psalmist writes: “Yet the Lord WILL command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” Here is the believer “receiving” by faith, that which the KING has commanded to give.
Lastly, the psalmist comes to the point of “waiting” on God. “Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.” The thirst that God has given, that consciousness of need, has driven the psalmist, the believer, to seek God and Him alone. The seeking is based on the fact that God ALONE can truly meet the need, and the certainty, that He WILL meet the need. All is based on the character, nature and word of God.
Dear Father, give us grace to use the thirsts of heart and soul, to seek Your face, and to find it. Enable us to come to grips with WHO You are, and to believe Thee according to your commandments and promises. And grant us grace to truly wait upon Thee for Thy faithful intervention. We thank Thee, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad