Select a Ring of Truth daily devotion online
Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
Select the date to display the devotion for:
Psalm 42:1-2
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
So begins the second of the five books of Psalms.
Psalm 43 appears in many ways to be just an extension of Psalm 42. Psalm 42:5 is repeated at verse 11 (the last verse of Psalm 42) and again as the last verse of Psalm 43 (v 5). “Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.”
This Psalm recognises the integral need we all have for God. It is not just for the Christian, as everyone is created by God to enjoy an intimate relationship with Him, which is to be as vital and natural as breathing and eating. You can no more live without God than you can live without food and water.
There is within us all an insatiable desire to be in relationship with God, whether we acknowledge it or not, or whether we like it or not. The fact that so many people appear to exist without any desire to know God is insufficient evidence that the design and the desire are missing. This need may not be recognised as being for God – but it can be recognised as a fundamental need for self-worth, significance and security.
If we try and find these outside of God, and most of us do, we shall find that our needs are never satisfied and the ‘object’ that we thought would satisfy, whether material or human, will always disappoint us in the end.
Interestingly enough, when we become Christians and recognise that it is God we need and desire, all else becomes unsatisfactory much more quickly and there rises up within us a deep desire to get to know God better and more intimately.
There also arises in us a hunger to spend more and more time with Him and His Word. How often we cry with the Psalmist – “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, O God.”
For Christians, the stream is the Holy Spirit within us.
Can I ask you, “How strong is your desire to get to know Him and His Word?” “How strong is your desire to be filled with His Holy Spirit?” “How strong is the flow within you?”
Your life will be as victorious as the depth of your desire for Him. If you are growing cold, lethargic, bored or apathetic – increase your desire for God. Be like the deer in a parched waterless desert, panting for water … cry out in desperation to the living God, “God I need more of You! God, I want more of You!”
I can promise you this – He has never disappointed anyone who is that desperate.
Download the above Ring of Truth devotion as a PDF.
Previous Day's Devotion | Next Day's Devotion
To subscribe to this daily devotion by email visit our Daily Email subscription page.
