Psalm 42 has been one of those special pieces of scripture for me. It is one many of us are familiar with, at least the first few verses. There was a season when “As the Deer” was a very popular praise and worship song. It was sung in many a church, small group, youth group and people loved the uplifting and hopeful words it offered. It is not unusual to find a nice peaceful picture of a deer standing in a beautiful green field beside a slowly flowing stream with the first few words from the Psalm somewhere on the picture.
These are nice, peaceful, comforting images and yet they betray the heart of the Psalmist. Take a moment and read all of Psalm 42. Listen to the Psalmist’s heart, hear their cry as they pour out their soul to God.
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?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
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.
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.
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.
By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
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.
“My tears have been my food, day and night” “I pour out my soul” “Why must I go about mourning?” It is not all beautiful deer and gentle streams flowing through lush green valleys. The Psalmist captures the reality of walking with Jesus in the midst of a world that is filled with pain, hurt and turmoil. They let us know that it is not all roses and easy…and yet, “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
I have been drawn to this Psalm for years. There is a sense of honesty and reality about it that I love. In the middle of the Psalm there are four words which have captivated my spirit, “Deep calls to Deep”. As I read those words one day it struck me that what the Psalmist was talking about was the Depth of God calling out to the depth of individual people…just as the depth of people call out to the Depth of God. “Deep calls to Deep”. The more I thought about it and meditated on it the more I “fell in love” with those words. The deep parts of who I am, my inner soul crying out to God and the God of grace, power and mercy speaking back to me. A relationship. A conversation. An opportunity to share the inner most parts of who I am with my creator (not that he did not know them already) and for me to hear from Him how He saw me, and to seek to understand His plans for my life. “Deep calls to Deep”. In the midst of the struggle I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God because he hears the cry from the depth of my soul and shares with me the depth of His heart.
How does that happen? How does the “conversation” take place? I do not claim to be any kind of spiritual master or anything…but I have learned that, at least for me, it begins with silence. My life is so filled with “noise” that it drowns out the deeper parts of my soul and makes it near impossible to hear the “still small voice of God” as He seeks to share the depth of who He is with me. An example…when I went into the hospital I turned the ringer on my cell phone off, all the way off, the setting past vibrate. For a week I just let it sit there and every now and then I would pick it up, check messages and email. I did not miss a single thing and I responded to everyone just like I needed to. What did happen was there was a spirit of peace. I was not constantly responding to some ding, ring, or vibrate from my phone. I had seasons of quiet to sit and be still. When I left the hospital over a month ago I simply did not turn the volume back up. It is amazing how much I was a “slave” to that phone. Every single text, email, Facebook update, phone call etc. I heard it go off and felt as if it demanded my immediate response. How in the world can you be silent and be still in the midst of that? Occasionally I will turn the volume up when I am expecting an important call…but for the most part I get messages four or five times a day and amazingly that has worked out well. Turns out the “demands” of this world are only suggestions and working to be still to hear the Depth of God calling out to me is a little more important…who knew.
Reading has not been easy these past few months. I have found myself distracted and when I do sit down to read will often wake up and find I only read a few pages. I have been working my way through a great book and I want to share some of it with you now. “Into the Silent Land” by Martin Laird explores the deep and rich Christian tradition of contemplation, meditation, and stillness. Mr. Laird understands the reality of Deep calling to Deep. More than understanding it he seeks to help us engage in the conversation with the full Depth of God as we journey through life.
He suggests, and I agree, that
“There are two contemplative practices of fundamental importance in the Christian tradition: the practice of stillness (also called meditation, still prayer, contemplative prayer) and the practice of watchfulness or awareness.”
As he writes about union with God I hear the Psalmist cheer, “Deep calls to Deep!” He acknowledges the struggles that life, especially life in our media driven, sensory overloaded American culture provides; yet there is hope that we may overcome “the great illusion” and break through to true communion with Abba Father.
“Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience through-out most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it is the human condition. The sense of separation from God is real, but the meeting of stillness reveals that this this perceived separation does not have the last word. This illusion of separation is generated by the mind and is sustained by the riveting of our attention to the interior soap opera, the constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in our heads. For most of us this is what normal is, and we are good at coming up with ways of coping with this perceived separation (our consumer driven, entertainment culture takes care of most of it). But some of us are not so good at coping and so we drink ourselves into oblivion or cut or burn ourselves ‘so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside’”
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
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