I. The Christian must often share feelings such as these. The iron fetters of his oppressors namely, the sins which are ever besetting him are sore and heavy. These fearful foes which he bears within his own bosom sins of unrestrained appetite, sins that spring of past habits, sins of criminal weakness and cowardice they triumph over him sometimes; and when he falls, they seem to say, "Where is thy God?" But it is not his fall only and God's absence that afflict him. It is that he knows how these enemies are carrying him away carrying him into captivity; and he knows not how or when he shall again return to appear in the presence of his God. When apathy has silently crept over our souls till we begin, not exactly to disobey, but to be careless about obedience; when we have wandered away from Christ and from the Cross, not indeed on purpose, but simply from not heeding our steps, what shall startle us and bring us back better than to have our hearts touched and our feelings stirred by the return of a festival or a fast unlike common days?
II. But there are dangers, it may be said, in such observances; and the observances themselves are more like Jewish discipline than Christian liberty. Both these things are true. We may say that we will not have a special season for penitence, and will make our penitence extend over our whole life, and as we are always sinning, so always be repenting. But if we try it, we find that the result is that if we are much engaged, as many of us ought to be, in the work which God has given us to do in the world, the penitent spirit, instead of being spread over our lives, threatens to disappear altogether, and our characters sink down to a lower level; less spiritual, less pure, less lofty, less self-denying. We need such seasons in order to keep alive in our minds the high standard by which the pure conscience ought to judge.
III. The natural expression of our feelings at such seasons is that expressed in the verse of the Psalms, "To commune with our own hearts and in our chambers." Real, earnest self-examination has taken the place of all other penitential expressions.
Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons,p. 254.
I. The figure of intense thirst is current coin in the figurative language of all ages; and with this thirst, says the Psalmist, "My soul longeth for the living God." There is something more here than mere intellectual conviction. To believe in God is much; to be athirst and to long for Him is much more.
II. The language of the text not only transcends mere belief in God as the great Creator and Governor of the world; it also surpasses any language which could be adopted by the belief in God as the Benefactor and Preserver of the man who used the language. It is just when David seems to be deserted, when his enemies are triumphing over him, when his whole prospect is as black as night, that his soul is thirsting for God, even for the living God.
III. This language by no means stands alone. It is no exaggeration to say that the connection between the human soul and the living God and the consequent appetite of the pure soul for God's presence constitutes the very first principle of the book of Psalms.
IV. The thirst of the human soul after God is a great argument that there is a God to be thirsted for. Men would not thirst for that for which they have no affinity. The human soul longs for the sympathy of some being higher than, and yet like, itself. The presence of God can only be imagined as, in some sense, a human presence. The practical proof of the being of God not of God as a mere power, or a mere synonym for nature, or a mere hypothesis, but of God Who has created man, and Who loves him with the love of a Father, and desires a return of love for love is to be found in the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 289.
References: Psalms 42:1. R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains,p. 410. Psalms 42:1-3. F. W. Robertson, Sermons,2nd series, p. 106.