Daily Worship

Song in the night

Katy Emslie-Smith May 06, 2014 0 0

Psalm 42

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.
When can I go and meet with 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[d]
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 Saviour and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon – from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

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

I say to God my Rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?’
My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
‘Where is your God?’

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.

God,

When our souls are downcast, 

Disturbed within,

Restless and wrestling with questions “Why” and “Where are you?”

May we hear the deep notes,

When tears are our food day and night,

Then in those times, as in no other,

May we hear the deepest notes of hope,

Which tumbles from the mountain heights,

Down the course of the waterfalls,

Across the lazy plains

Through the breakers

To the depths of the sea.

 

Hope remembered,

As praise, in loss, begins again its cautious refrain,

For then we will find that these notes were never silent,

That your song has always been with us, 

Throughout the night.

 

by Katy Emslie-Smith