This photo of some of Caleb’s family and me near a more than 5000 year old structure in Malta gives you a bit of a taste of the barrenness of that country. Mark and I remarked on the similarities with Israel’s landscape. Keeping this in mind consider the surroundings when these words were recorded about 3000 years ago. “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:1-2 I love this word picture comparison. Spurgeon gives us some great thoughts about these verses that should challenge us on a daily basis. “A camel does not pant after water brooks because it carries its own water within it, but the hart (deer) does because it has no inward resources. After being hunted on a hot day, it has no inward supplies, it is drained of its moisture. So are we. We do not carry a store of grace within of our own upon which we can rely, we need to come again, and again, and again, to the divine fountain, and drink again from the eternal spring. Hence it is because we have a new life, and that life is dependent upon God, and has all its fresh springs in Him, that we pant and thirst after Him. O Christian, if you had a sacred life which could be maintained by its own energies within, you might do without your God, but since you are naked, and poor, and miserable, apart from Him, you must come and drink day by day of the living springs, or else you faint and die.” Spurgeon
This Thursday morning I’m looking forward to being back with you for a spiritually encouraging time in Psalms 42 and 43. I also have a small treat of everyone from Switzerland :).