Praying Through: Psalm 42

The Psalm

Psalm 42 (CSB)
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.

2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?”

4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.

5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.

6 I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your billows have swept over me.

8 The LORD will send his faithful love by day; 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 have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?”

10 My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”

11 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.

The Prayer

Only Giver of Life

When you found me

  • I was a swollen corpse
  • at the bottom of the ocean
  • I was a dried up river
  • in the middle of a burning desert
  • I was frozen death
  • in a icy wasteland

I was completely dead

  • I had no life to call upon you
  • I had no heart to beat towards you
  • My hands and feet were death
  • and I stunk like a rotting corpse
  • with sin-maggots eating
  • away at my terrible heart

Surely I was left for dead

But you saw me

  • and not only had pity on me
  • but more so
  • you gave me favor
  • you lavished your grace
  • and you extended your mercy
  • You saw me
  • in my desperate wickedness
  • my unholy wretchedness
  • my perversion wanton lusts
  • and you loved me
  • you cared for me
  • you saved me
  • you predestined me
  • you called me
  • you justified me
  • and only because your promises
  • are the only sure thing
  • you have glorified me

You are my Lord and my God

  • there is none like you

Amen and amen