Thirsty Like a Deer for the Stream

The man who wrote this song was one of the Sons of Korah,
the family who led the singing at God's house in Jerusalem.
But when he wrote it, he was far from Jerusalem,
where the snow melts off Mount Hermon
and the Jordan River comes crashing down the rocks.

All day he heard water roaring.
(If you had stood beside him, you would have had to shout.)
And all day he was thirsty,
thirsty for God.

So he sang about a deer.

"As a deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul is thirsty for God, the living God.
When can I go and stand in front of him?"

He cried so much
that tears were his breakfast and his supper.
And people who did not love God
kept poking at him:
"Where is your God now?"

He remembered the festival days,
when he walked at the front of the crowd
up the road to God's house,
everybody shouting and singing.
(Families walked to Jerusalem for the feasts
and sang psalms the whole way,
the way some families sing in the car,
only for days instead of an hour.)

Remembering made it hurt more.
So the singer did a strange thing.
He turned around and talked to his own soul.

"Why are you so sad, my soul?
Why are you so upset inside me?
Put your hope in God!
I will praise him again,
my Savior and my God."

His soul did not listen the first time.
(Souls are like that.)
The waterfalls kept thundering.
"Deep is calling to deep," he sang.
"All your waves have rolled over me."
Even at night, God gave him a song.
"God, my Rock," he said,
"why have you forgotten me?"
And again he told his soul,
"Hope in God!"

The sadness kept coming back.
So he prayed.
"Send out your light and your truth.
Let them lead me home to your holy hill.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight,
and I will praise you on the harp."

And a third time, stubborn as a goat on a cliff:
"Why are you so sad, my soul?
Hope in God.
I will praise him again."

The song stops there,
the singer still far from home,
still thirsty,
still hoping.

But even going home could not end that thirst.
Even on the best festival day,
he could stand near God's house
but could not see God's face.
So God's people kept his song,
and waited.

Then another singer came to Jerusalem
who knew this psalm by heart.
At a great feast he stood and called out,
"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!"
One night in a garden he said,
"My soul is so sad, it feels like dying."
Then they nailed him to a cross,
and he hung there for six long hours.
And just before he died, he said,
"I am thirsty."

He carried that thirst down into death.
On the third day he came up out of the grave alive,
with living water for every thirsty soul.

That second thirsty singer was Jesus,
and he is the stream.