The song is so stuck in our heads that we miss the meaning of the Psalm, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.” We imagine the exhausted deer making its way down to the peaceful stream finally finding what it needs at the water’s edge. We imagine a hope realized, but that is not where this Psalm leaves us. The Psalmist cries out, “when can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’” That is not a cry of hope realized. That is a cry of hope yet deferred. 

People often a assume that a pastor’s ears are virgin ears that aren’t accustomed to hearing the harsh reality of the world. The truth is our ears are world weary. We hear the cries of broken saints whose faith is holding on by a fingertip. The cries of mother’s suffering from their prodigal child’s self-destructive addiction, rock our souls. The broken-hearted curses of the cheated on, beaten up, and let down, break our hearts too. We hear the worst of this world and sit mute when there are no answers on this side of eternity. At our best we sit silently, not adding to the chorus of Job’s friends, and point to the Rock that is higher than all of us. 

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me…I say to God my Rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’”

The pain of grief is old every morning. We live in community with suffering, and yet our pain isolates and separates us. The panting deer of Psalm 42 is the panting of deer that is longing for refreshment that it can’t find. And yet, there is hope. There is pain in remembering the good that God once did for us. There is pain in remembering the joy we once had in the presence of God that we can’t currently enjoy. There is pain, but there is hope. God is not quite visible, but that does not mean he is not there. The psalmist musters up the threads of faith that still bind his wandering heart to God’s and with the last bit of strength he has left, preaches to his own heart, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” 

The Psalm ends not with hope satisfied, but with hope, nonetheless. The Lord is your Savior and your God. He will not fail.