Psalm 42: Connecting with God in Our Sadness

RUF Wednesday Night Fellowship 11.3.21.

Psalm 42 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.

1    As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2    My soul thirsts for God,

for the living God.

       When shall I come and appear before God?

3    My tears have been my food

day and night,

       while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

4    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.

5    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 6 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.

7    Deep calls to deep

at the roar of your waterfalls;

       all your breakers and your waves

have gone over me.

8    By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,

and at night his song is with me,

a prayer to the God of my life.

9    I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

       Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10    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?”

11    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 58: Connecting with God in Our Anger

RUF Wednesday Night Fellowship 10.27.21

PSALM 58 (NLT)

For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be sung to the tune “Do Not Destroy!”

1 Justice—do you rulers know the meaning of the word?

Do you judge the people fairly?

2 No! You plot injustice in your hearts.

You spread violence throughout the land.

3 These wicked people are born sinners;

even from birth they have lied and gone their own way.

4 They spit venom like deadly snakes;

they are like cobras that refuse to listen,

5 ignoring the tunes of the snake charmers,

no matter how skillfully they play.

6 Break off their fangs, O God!

Smash the jaws of these lions, O Lord!

7 May they disappear like water into thirsty ground.

Make their weapons useless in their hands.

8 May they be like snails that dissolve into slime,

like a stillborn child who will never see the sun.

9 God will sweep them away, both young and old,

faster than a pot heats over burning thorns.

10 The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged.

They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.

11 Then at last everyone will say,

“There truly is a reward for those who live for God;

surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.”