"As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for YOU, O GOD.
My soul thirsts for GOD, for the living GOD.
When shall I go and see the face of GOD?
Day and night, my tears have been my food,
as people ask, day after day,
'Where is your GOD?'"
- Psalm 42:2-4
(The Levite is far from Jerusalem. He is exiled in the land, where the Jordan rises. The sound of its falling waters is to him a dirge for the lost happiness of the Temple feasts.
We, too, are in exile and this psalm should deepen our consciousness of it. But our longings are not for 'this mountain' [John 4:21] or that, as the psalmist's was for Zion. Our LORD has brought us a higher hope. Our destiny is to 'see the face of GOD,' not only in the mediating forms of sacred ceremony. We are to see HIM 'as HE is' [1 John 3:2]. Ask GOD for the desire for heaven. We, too, like the Levite, are exiles here below, as long as we do not see the face of GOD. It is good that we are not too quickly satisfied with a few beautiful ceremonies.
Long for GOD, as a deer longs for flowing streams, and our happiness will last forever and not just for long.)
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