I will again praise

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.



My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love,
and 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 do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
                 
                      Psalm 42


Prayer without faith degenerates into objectless routine, or soulless hypocrisy. Prayer with faith brings Omnipotence to back our petitions. Better not pray unless and until your whole being responds to the efficacy of your supplication. When the true prayer is breathed, earth and heaven, the past and the future, say Amen. And Christ prayed such prayers. –P. M.

“For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” (Rom. 3:3).

I think that I can trace every scrap of sorrow in my life to simple unbelief. How could I be anything but quite happy if I believed always that all the past is forgiven, and all the present furnished with power, and all the future bright with hope because of the same abiding facts which do not change with my mood, do not stumble because I totter and stagger at the promise through unbelief, but stand firm and clear with their peaks of pearl cleaving the air of Eternity, and the bases of their hills rooted unfathomably in the Rock of God. Mont Blanc does not become a phantom or a mist because a climber grows dizzy on its side. –James Smetham

"Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and wandering, 

         all the precious things that were hers from days of old."

“....in this day was called the perfection of beauty"

“who can heal you?"

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”


-Lamentations



           This is a seemingly random collection of quotes and scripture, but for this weary soul they have been the perfect combination of the words I need right now and all that Christ is longing to show me.


           I have long wondered how I can go from being such a happy, joyful believer to a doubting, cynical pessimist. Some would say that is simply the work of our flesh, to which I would completely agree, and yet this part of me has longed to understand myself in a way that helps me maintain the faithfulness I am called to as a follower of Jesus. 

          Today I still don`t have an answer. I can`t explain to myself or anyone else why I feel the way I feel sometimes or why I think the things I think. 


         And yet I have an answer, believe. Trust. Have faith.


        These are just "the church answer will help you" these are the keys which unlock my trapped soul from doubt and fear to a soul of complete peace and fulfilled joy. When God has my mind, my heart, my soul, my strength, each and every one, to their complete content, then He has me. And when He has me, everything is fine. Even when I am distressed and sad. 


       I have hope, I will again praise Him.