“When shall I some and appear before God” (Psalm 42:2)? Maybe, after 2 months of worshipping while huddled over a computer screen, the psalmist’s lament has gained new meaning for you. Now, we don’t know exactly why the psalmist wasn’t able to go to the Temple for worship. He might have been sick, or he might have been carried off into exile from the Promised Land. But in any case, his greatest longing is to be close to God, and it was such a great desire that he lost sleep over it (v. 3).

So, if a COVID vaccine were suddenly to be developed for this virus, and everything were to snap back to the way it was last Fall, what would you most like to do? What is your greatest desire? Chances are, that’s really your god, whatever your profession of faith may be.

But the psalmist has an even greater challenge for us. For His intense desire for God is combined with a certainty that God really is in charge of everything – including his current inability to worship in the Temple. In verse 7, he affirms that somehow God is in control even of the waves of trouble that engulf him. That’s why in verse 9, he cries out that God has forgotten him – just as Jesus felt forsaken on the cross (Mark 15:34, Psalm 22:1).

Yes, the Cross proves that God’s plans may include times when we feel distant from Him. God’s plans may include great suffering, especially when we try to live for the glory of God and the good of others in a sinful world. No, we don’t have to be carried off into exile to feel the pain and weariness of the struggle against boredom and fear, the friction of trying to swim upstream in the face of godless cultural currents.

But even in the midst of the psalmist’s suffering, and even though he knows God could bring it to an end at any time, he does not lose faith. Instead, he allows his longing for God to win out over his despair. And why does he insist on hoping in God in the midst of his difficult circumstances? Because as verse 2 says, he knows God is living. Because as verse 8 says, he knows God’s faithful, covenant-keeping love never fails. Because as verse 9 says, God is his rock, his place of ultimate safety. Because as verses 5 and 11 say, God is his only salvation.

And because he knows who God is, the psalmist can keep on longing for God, can keep on hoping in God and keep on praying to God, just as Jesus did on the cross. And because Jesus rose from the dead, our hope in God’s love and protection and salvation can be even more firm, no matter what may happen to us today.

Psalm 42 (NASB)

For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah . As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him For the help of His presence.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember Thee from the land of the Jordan, And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls; All Thy breakers and Thy waves have rolled over me.
8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God my rock, “Why hast Thou forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance, and my God.