I write this meditation from Cambridge, hard
pressed by all the tasks I’ve said yes to and feeling like there is scarcely
enough time to get them all done. I seem pulled in multiple different
directions and the one thing I desire is a break. And I certainly can’t say
that I’m spending my day thinking “My soul thirsts for God, for the living
God.” Instead, I have a far more narrow attitude towards God. I am not
thirsting after God, but simply see God as one more thing on my to-do list,
another addition to the daily grind. I read those opening verses and I scarcely
recognise myself. I just don’t feel like that. I don’t thirst after God. I see
God as part of the problem.
However, further into the psalm I find an answer
to my stressed and harried state. The psalmist too feels the struggle to desire
God: “These things I remember as I
pour out my soul” – they are things of the past. Further, God can be asked “Why
have you forgotten me?” I see in these verses the struggles we all feel to stay
connected to God. However, the psalm shows us that even in a place of
desolation, we can still reach out to God, we can still cling to the hope we
had before “I will yet praise him/my Saviour and my God.” My training to be a
vicar tests and tires me. Too often I can feel like I am all churched out, like
God stuff is simply another obstacle in my busy schedule. And yet, I can still
reach for my memory of what God has done for me and find that God is faithful.
I can still stretch out my weary hand and put my hope in God.
In this time of Lent, I hope to seek out God once
more. I am tired, busy, and short of time. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep
looking. And it won’t stop God from being there to be found.
Nathan Joss
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