As The Deer (Some Vague Sharing)

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longs after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

I was back diary reading the other day, and remember quite a number of Sundays ago how I was encouraged by this song based on Psalm 42:1 (which is surprisingly not as old as I thought it was, it was composed in 1981).

The lyrics are so short and repetitive but to me back then it held a wealth of meaning.

I was coming out to church that day from night shift and was fighting a series of not so nice thoughts that were hounding my head. I had kept on rationalizing myself to leave those thoughts as I travelled for an hour plus fro work to church. It was a tussle, and I sort of won, but it was the sort of victory soldiers get in a bloody battlefield - even if your side wins, you don't feel happy about it because the whole army has lost many good men and is in a bad state. Battered victory.

But when they sang this song at worship (on top of a nice thing that happened before that that really helped), I recovered. And I realized that how I recovered is in remembering how much strength I could draw from God, and this understanding came through the lyrics. "You alone are my heart's desire", "You alone are my strength, my shield". My heart's desire, my strength, my shield. He protects my desires, He protects my heart against evil.

And all a sudden it didn't hurt anymore. All that tiredness and heaviness was swept away, replaced by a balm of thankfulness, by just understanding who God really is, and what the relationship between us was like.

And I longed to worship Him.