There are times in our lives when we become focused on what truly matters. We gain clarity. We realize that the One we have no control over bears us up. The One who cannot be penned in by our thoughts gives us thoughts and direction and identity.
When that happens, we know it is grace. It is a gift.
Sometimes it happens in the midst of breakdown and low feelings. We have been fighting a battle and losing. We simply do not have it together. We are poor in spirit. Our soul is cast down. And we are anxious about the state we are in. Yet we have moved closer to the reality we need. Our cast down condition is simply our longing for what truly matters, our longing for God.
In the words of Psalm 42:
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
The psalmist asks why his soul is cast down:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.
The being-cast-down is our soul knowing it can no longer live off what we have been feeding it. So the thing to do is not to fill that longing with more noise, turning up the volume of our lives, turning to more social media, buying another thing we do not need, finding another relationship—maybe ending the one we have now. Our soul longs for life and is being starved.
We must say to our soul, “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.”
In the midst of the numerous voices telling us what to do about our condition, how to solve the problem that is us, how to make things right, how to gain control, we must turn to hope in God. In the midst of the turmoil of voices in our body politic, in the midst of voices of anger, fearful voices; in the midst of voices of racism and fear of the other, of the refugee; in the midst of voices of greed and arrogance and war talk, we must hope in God, listening again for the “still small voice.” Otherwise, these voices, finding a hook in our fears and prejudices and controlling ways, will lead us into the darkness. Or we will react to these voices with fear and anger, without taking the action that brings light and change.
Turn from these other voices and claims upon our lives; wait and listen. Hope in God, for we shall again praise him, our help and our God.
“As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.”