Longing

For every believer there are times when God seems absent or remote.

Psalm 42 expresses the distress felt by the psalmist who is grief-stricken, depressed, surrounded by people who keep taunting him with the question, "Where is your God?"

He longs to experience the reassurance of God's presence he once enjoyed. He compares his deep longing for God with the thirst for water felt by a deer during a time of drought.

"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? 

Psalm 42: 1-2

If you have 6 minutes, here's Mendelsohn's setting of Psalm 42, sung in German (with English sub-titles).

This post is the 20th in a series of daily Lenten reflections based on one of the Bible readings or Psalms from the Common Worship Lectionary of the Church of England. this one is based on Psalm 42: 1-2; 43: 1-4.