AS THE HART PANTETH

The first thing we can see in this text is the intense longing that is expressed. God’s servant is longing for God with a holy desire. His soul is poured out in yearning for the Lord and His comforting presence. Is there in our soul also such a longing?

One almost hesitates to take hold of these words and to try to explain them. That which is expressed in the text can only be understood by the light from heaven. This truth is an experimental truth. It is a Godly testimony. It is written in this Psalm for our instruction, and the Lord can give the light of the Holy Spirit so that we may understand it better.

David knew, what Augustine of old expressed in his “Confessions”: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” By nature man is without God in the world, and he is unhappy apart from God. Although he tries to be happy with himself, it is of no avail. We therefore have to learn: Man cannot find repose for his soul in anything else than in God through Christ. A living man, who has a soul, a spirit, must have a living God, a Saviour, to find rest.

But sad to say, all men do not realize the things that pertain to their welfare. Many seek to satisfy their souls apart from God. As the rich fool, they look to the things of this world. But if the Lord opens our eyes, then we shall find that the greatest wonder in life is to learn to have a need for God alone. Then we begin to understand what it is “to pant” after God in heaven. David might believe it by grace and therefore he could speak about it.

The picture presented by the text is that of a panting hart seeking to quench its thirst in some clear brook. The hart, of course, is a deer, and it is seeking water, crying for a clear refreshing stream. It is often thought that David penned these words when he was banished from Jerusalem and persued by his son Absalom. But whatever the immediate reason was, the psalmist was greatly oppressed. He was cut off from God’s special presence in the temple worship. God seemed to have forsaken him, and his inmost heart cried out in longing. God seemed to be far from him. Therefore his cry was: “My soul thirsteth for God.”

The same urgency can be awakened in any of God’s children by a similar oppression. The reason for such a need could be that God is hiding His face because of neglect of spiritual life. But whatever the reason, the Lord can and does use various means to awaken that longing of the soul for Himself.

Has your soul ever been afflicted, oppressed and overwhelmed by grief, pain, afflictions, or sins? Did your soul thirst for God, the living God? Shall it be well on our journey to eternity, we shall have to learn to have such a longing for the living God. Then we have, by grace, to become pilgrims and strangers here on earth.

The word “panting” suggests the intensity of the psalmist’s longing for the Holy One of Israel. His need is likened to thirst. Imagine a traveler lost in a waterless desert, who will give anything for a drink of water. His life is at stake, and that life is expressing itself in the need for water. The psalmist longs for God with a spiritual urge that is as needful as physical thirst. He needs God as much for his spiritual existence as his body needs water to live. He longs for the presence of God in Christ, he knows that he must perish, and the urgency of that need is clearly expressed in his panting after God’s presence.

Dear reader, a question: Are you convinced that you need God in the same urgent way? May God give for the first time or by renewal, that which is in the text: “as the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.”

God’s servant David must have God or his soul will perish, and the urgency of that conviction is clearly expressed in his panting and thirsting for God’s presence. But, at the same time, there is this question for us: Are we convinced that we need God in the same urgent manner?

If we were told that we could have all our material desires fulfilled, so that we could live in luxury and in comfort, but that God and all possible communion with Him would be denied to us, we would in reality be very poor. What would we experience, if we might see that, by the light of heaven? Would the world suddenly become very empty and hollow for us? Would life lose all its lustre and appeal? Would we see what it means to be entirely cut off from God? O, in that way, it could be, that the Lord would thus come to tell us, that it is a wonder from heaven if it might become so!

“My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” If the psalmist is denied God, in Christ, he is as a thirsty, hunted deer without water. Nothing can take the place of water for that thirsty deer — nothing and no one else can take the place of God for the longing soul. The same idea, although expressed somewhat differently, is found in Psalm 73:25; “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.” Nothing can take the place of God for a really thirsty soul. Did we ever have such an experience? Have we felt that emptiness which only God can fill?

Believe me, the thirst for the Lord must be continual in the life of God’s child. There must be a desire for a closer walk with God, and a desire to know Him better. Alas, many times it is so far away! Or do we think that we can be happy in certain things with God left out of it? Can we leave the eternal God out of our planning, hoping and desiring, and not feel the lack of His presence?

Sometimes God’s child becomes so absorbed in his earthly life and its concerns, that he drives the Lord’s presence from his heart. Then the soul is left to parch upon an arid wilderness. Therefore it is a miracle from heaven if the Lord opens the eyes again, so that the soul has to cry for God. Then the heart refuses to be comforted by any other. “He thirsteth for God, for the living God.”

The longing of the psalmist is well defined and well directed. Yes, he may be bowed deeply, and his soul may cry from inward pain, but he knows by grace exactly where and how the thirst of his soul is to be quenched — by the refreshing balm of God’s presence in his inmost heart.

O, that the longing of men’s soul were thus defined and directed! There are many, even in church who wander about upon this earth as living dead. They may laugh loudly all the time, but underneath there is emptiness, frustration and despair and their hearts know no real rest. If their eyes were only lifted to the hills of heaven and their souls might receive a need to come under the wings of the Almighty. If they only realized that the thirst of the soul can only be quenched at the fountain of God’s presence.

It should also be noted that the psalmist longs specifically for God Himself. He is not asking for blessings from the hand of his Creator, nor does he desire deliverance or salvation or such. He knows, by the work of the Holy Spirit, that fellowship with God IS salvation. Alas, there are many who think of God only in terms of the blessings which He can give, and thus they long only for Him to receive these benefits. Their desire for God is selfish. They do not long for God Himself, but for what He can give.

With David it was totally different. David’s soul yearned for God Himself. His heart would rest only in the bosom of his Father in heaven. Another question; Do we long for God Himself, or do we desire Him only for His blessings?

Remember, man was made for God so that he could delight in Him, could rest in Him, and could praise and glorify Him forever. With David our soul must “thirst for God, for the living God” Himself. Alas, we lost it in our deep fall in Adam and from our side there is no desire to seek Him.

But the wonder for God’s child is that one day the longing for God will be fully satisfied. That will be when the Saviour shall return to gather the redeemed unto Himself and bring them in the New Jerusalem. There shall be no sin there to mar the perfect fellowship with God. In heaven the redeemed shall delight in the Lord’s presence in all eternity. There will be no longing for God there, neither will there by any panting after Him. Nor will there be any thirst, for there that people will find a “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb.” O, do we truly long for God and His presence? Is it a soul-consuming passion that refuses all substitutes? Don’t forget, our soul can only find rest in God through Christ. Without Him there is an eternal soul destruction.

Dear reader, old and young, may it be or become our need during our earthly pilgrimage to receive that earnest cry in our soul: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!” Then at the end of our pilgrimage the Lord will make everything well for time and eternity. That will be to His glory and to the welfare of a poor and needy soul. Amen.

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