Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God,

Psalm 42:1-11

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,  “Where is your God?” These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.

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.

By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.

These two psalms share the same theme and the same refrain and probably began as a single poem.

The psalmist is in exile in the north, surrounded by godless people who dispirited, he contrasts past joys when he led the pilgrim throng to the sanctuary, with the unhappy present. All his happiness rests in God, and he is filled with longing for God's presence, to come again to the Temple.

Why?

When people lost the Temple, church, we will remember the good and grace of the Lord. 

Like the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for my God. Do I have such a desire in my heart?

Why my soul downcast? For the country has lost and Temple was gone, so psalmist felt sad. 

Put your hope in God for I will praise him. This is our heart and mind have to be, for God is my Lord, my savior.

God will direct his love by day, at night his song is with me. God is always with me.

How?

Praise the Lord and remember his word in my heart.