A Thirst for God

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"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?' "  
                                                                                                             Psalm 42:1-3. NKJV

The Psalmist uses the analogy of a deer thirsting for water after running all over the countryside. It needs the water to survive. One can go longer without food than without water. Thirst is something that is so hard to bear. Thirsts rage.

Here, the word, 'Soul', is made up of the Mind, Will and Emotions. With the Mind, our thoughts can play tricks with us when we're under pressure. In a stressful situation, and when we are low on spiritual energy, we can be tempted to believe that God can't help us in this situation. If He could, why has He allowed this to happen to me? Mind games can rule. We need to keep our minds on God because He won't let us down- ever. This is where the Will part comes into play. This is over-ruling any negative thought that tries to come in and making it subject to Jesus:

'For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself  against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of God.'
                                                                                            2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Emotions are very strong and if the evil one can get a thought into our head that God doesn't care about us, and we don't have the will power to block this attack, then negative emotions can begin to kick in and lead us to despair.

The Psalmist was struggling in this area and so will we at times of great sadness and chaotic thought. Tears had been flooding for him as he tried to make sense of it all. This was not helped by the fact that onlookers were saying to him, 'Where is your God?' A paraphrase of this would be, 'I thought that God loved you and yet, look at you, you're in a right state. I'm glad I'm not a Christian.' 

Hey come on. We all have days where everything goes wrong. We also have times where total despair tries to take over and make us question our faith. It's part of the course of being a Soldier of Jesus. The thing is, our Commanding Officer will not let us down and will give us the Living Water- water that will never run out. 

Don't despair; look up. Jesus is right beside you and wants to carry you through this trial. 
Allow Him to do this for you. Allow Him to quench your spiritual thirst. Hearts break but somehow He mends them. Don't ask me how. Only God knows this.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com