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The Scriptorium

Change Your Pants

Where is your heart focused? Psalm 42.1-3

Living toward the End: Psalms 42, 43 (5)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 42.1-3
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?”

Sing Psalm 42.1-3
(Nettleton: Come Thou Fount)
As the deer pants for fresh water let my soul, Lord, pant for You!
Let my soul thirst as it ought to for the Savior, ever true!
Tears by day have been my portion, tears by night have been my food,
while my foes add to my sorrow, saying, “Where now is your God?”

Read Psalm 42.1-3

Preparation
1. For what did the psalmists thirst?

2. What caused this thirst to arise within them?

Meditation
We have seen that the sons of Korah were downcast and disquieted in their soul because they were no longer serving in their familiar role (v. 4: “I used to…”), and they were being either mocked by real enemies (v. 10; cf. Ps. 43.1) or rather coldly encouraged by believing friends who were acting like enemies. This brought them to tears (v. 3) and mourning (v. 9), because they felt that somehow God had forgotten them (v. 9).

Either way, it wasn’t what they were “panting” after. Their lives had been upset; they experienced a longing for “the way things used to be”, for their enemies to back down, or for their believing “friends” to be a little more sympathetic.

If they had continued panting after that lost lifestyle and for more caring counselors, they would have fallen into sin. They would have been investing their happiness and wellbeing in something other than God.

But the sons of Korah knew what to do when they were feeling downcast in their soul: Change your pants. That is, check the desires of your soul. Make sure that you’re hungering and thirsting for God and His Kingdom and glory above all things. Look to Him to slake the thirst of loss, to buffer you against the unkindness of others, to dry up your tears (v. 3), and set you squarely before Him in all His glory.

Pant after God at all times. Look full in His glorious face; (cf. 2 Cor. 4.6), and you’ll end up hoping in and praising Him, and resting in the strength of His Presence and love (Pss. 42.11; 43.5).

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
The psalmists begin with correct thinking. “Yes, I should be panting after God in my soul and with all my being in the same way that a thirsty deer seeks water from a brook. Yes, I know I’m sad and disappointed and sorrowing.”

Then they veer off into incorrect assumptions and ideas. “Yes, I will assuage my thirst with my salty tears.” No. That won’t work.

How often do we do the same? We think to fill our souls with things that we assume will help, yet they too, always disappoint.

There will always, always be things, people, and circumstances that plunge us into sadness, sorrow, depression and defeat. We will never lack of those things. It is what we decide to pant over that ultimately matters.

We can try to slake our thirst with tears, or we can search out the living water of life. Jesus Himself has said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (Jn. 7.37, 38). Or as He told the woman at the well, if you drink this water you will “thirst again…but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (Jn. 4.13, 14). And Jesus instructed the Spirit to tell us, “And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22.17).

The water is free. The help offered is free. The hope is free. As are the light and truth!

We can resonate with this scene from Samson’s life: “Then he became very thirsty; so he cried out to the LORD and said, ‘You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant; and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?’ So God split the hollow place that is in Lehi (Spring of the Caller), and water came out, and he drank; and his spirit returned, and he revived” (Jdgs. 15.18, 19).

Samson changed his pants. And so should we.

Reflection
1. How can you keep a close watch on your heart, and the desires that guide it?

2. Jesus said that He could give us living water. How would you explain that idea to an unbelieving friend?

3. How would you encourage a downcast Christian friend to “slake his thirst” at the living water of Jesus?

The verb “to pant” is unusually expressive of a spiritual thirst for God. The poet describes his experience of being cut off from the worshiping community. He feels distant from God’s presence among His people and he longs for intimacy with God (see v. 4). Earl Radmacher (1931-2014), NKJV Study Bible Notes on Psalm 42.1-4
 
Closing Prayer: Psalm 42.4-11

Use this time in prayer to “check your pants” – to let the Lord review your strong desires. Walk through the day ahead, asking yourself at each step, “What do I most desire for this time?”

Sing Psalm 42.4-11

(Nettleton: Come Thou Fount)
Now I pour my soul out in me as these thoughts come to my mind.
And I long to once again be where true worship I might find.
Oh my soul, be not despairing!  Hope in God, and praise His Name!
For the Lord, your burden bearing, will restore your peace again.

Oh my God, my soul is weary, therefore I remember You.
Let Your grace and goodness near be, and Your promise, firm and true.
Lord, when trials and fears surround me, Your commands will be my song;
when distresses sore confound me, Your great love will keep me strong.

Lord, forget me not in mourning ‘neath my foes’ oppressing hand.
See their mocking, hear their scorning; help my weary soul to stand.
Hope in God, praise Him forever when despair on you has trod.
Look to Jesus; never, never doubt your gracious, saving God.

T. M. and Susie Moore

You can listen to our summary of last week’s study by clicking here.

Praying the Psalms
In this series, we are examining twelve psalms, learning their content, drawing on their wisdom, and praying and singing them to the Lord. For a fuller explanation of how to pray the psalms, order a copy of our book, God’s Prayer Program. It’s free by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available by clicking here.

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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