A DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
by Marilyn Bennett
Let’s Have a Drink
I have been asking people what they are doing on their “time off” and found it fascinating to hear what people choose to do when they have free time. Remember when your teacher said you have “free time"? What fun! You could choose whatever you wanted to do. What a gift. So, now that the world has given you a gift, what are you choosing to do with your “free time"?
Unfortunately, many are not choosing to study the Bible. I wonder why? Do we not feel confident? Is it boring? Is it confusing? Do you not know where to start? Pastor Phil has provided a wonderful opportunity to get your feet wet by providing a Beatitudes Bible Study on Mondays and Joe Caples is providing a study on the Book of John each Saturday.
Psalm 42:1-2 is one of my favorite verses.
“As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?”
However, what comes after is even more enlightening in Psalm 42:3.
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
Why do we need to be at our wit’s end before we choose to be close to God? We have missed so much by not choosing earlier.
There is more in Psalm 42:4.
These things I remember as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Remember how we used to go to the house of God and be fed? Now we must feed ourselves.
But the psalmist is not finished. Read verse five.
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Many of the people I visited these last few weeks have been just that -downcast. They’re not worried or fearful, just tired of being tied down and told to stay home. Now, look at what the Psalmist turns to in Psalm 42:6-7.
My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
The answer can be found in the love of God. When you are in love, you desire to be with the one you love. Nothing can keep you away. God is our lover, our one and only. Look what God wants to give us as you read Psalm 42:8! This is the nugget inside this psalm, the truth that God wants us to know.
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
You are thirsty whether you know it or not. Drink from the everlasting well of truth found in God’s Word. Watch God energize you day and night with his joyful song of love. When you find joy in the Word of God, you will wonder why it took you so long to get into the Word.
Why did you wait?
