Bible Studies

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We search for our God in the heavens, but the truth we find there is beyond our understanding. One bowling ball every four thousand miles is virtually nothing to us. Our fastest spaceships take days to get to the moon, months to the nearest planets and years to the further ones. But to get to even the nearest star would require a trip of seventy five thousand years.

Perhaps God resides way down in the small stuff, in the atomic structure. Unfortunately, things are even more scarce on that scale. The nucleus of an atom for its size is a hundred times further away from its electrons than our planets are from the sun. No doubt creation is both larger and smaller than we now can measure, but it has always been that way.

If we seek our Creator we must look for evidence on the human scale, in the people and the things we see everyday and what we attempt to create. Psalm 42 begins another journey, the third since we started, and like Psalm 22, this chapter begins from a place clouded by despair.





42. The Long Search

Like a deer looks for water from a stream, my soul seeks for the will of God. My soul thirsts for the living God. When will I come and appear before Him? My tears have been my companions and even they ask me where my God is.

I wonder about that and the worry wears me out. I have always gone to church, I’ve sung and prayed and have been an active member of the organizations. So, what is the matter with me? Why do I feel as far away from God as ever? I hope He will show himself soon, but I will keep on praising Him anyway.

I am so lost and far from Him; I will study how He dealt with his people in the land of the river Jordan, following the stream up to the mountain springs of Hermon and Mizar. Deep calls to deep and I would have the sacred waters cover me.

I will follow the Lord’s commandments, I will show kindness during the day and sing his praises in the evening. I will pray to Him always.

I still ask my God why He has forgotten me. He is my rock so why a do I mourn because of the troubles of living? My enemies pain me to the bone with their lies and deceit, they ask where my God is. I must not give up or even show doubt no matter how I feel. Praising God is my only hope and my face will show his strength.






Psalm 22 seemed to apply to circumstances around the death of Jesus, the Galilean from Nazereth around 32 A.D. Psalm 42 could describe the circumstances following our own understanding of our own eventual death, only it is happening at this very moment. “Like a deer looks for water,” is a serious, if not desperate, search for our God in our lives.

We uphold our vows and are engaged in body and spirit to do good work. We get active in the Church and help friends and strangers but it is not enough. There is something missing and we know it but we can’t quite pin it down. We feel closer to our goals yet God seems as far away as ever. We fear that maybe all our thoughts and actions are not enough and we worry that God has forgotten us. He hasn’t.

It is not by logic that we find the answer. Deep calls to deep and we become convinced by a lifetime of evidence and perceptions of the heart: there is a higher reality out there calling to us. Like a trail of crumbs we follow clues in actions of ourselves and others, in words and in feelings; but it is not an easy road. One moment we remember what we are about and feel the very near presence, and the next moment we are lost in imaginary past or future events and lose the thread.

It is in the present eternal moment and in the troubles of living that we find our work and our reward. We will not give up through times of trial and we are strengthened by every task we face. We are being tempered and sharpened for the work that remains to be done and we can find joy in the gift of life that is in every moment.

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