Cry of the Soul, to Our Heavenly Father | 3650 Minutes of Prayer

This is Day Sixteen of 3650 Minutes of Prayer. This episode rests in Psalm 42, a cry of the soul to the Father, where longing, tears, and hope are poured out before the living God. Today is less teaching and more honest thirst, as the heart pants for God like a deer for water and refuses to let go of hope in His presence.Psalm 42 reveals a soul that remembers past joy in God’s house even while feeling far from His face. Tears have become food day and night, questions rise, enemies mock, yet the psalmist speaks to his own heart: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him.” Deep calls to deep in the roar of God’s waterfalls, and even when waves seem to roll over us, His lovingkindness is commanded in the daytime and His song is with us in the night.Today we join this psalm as our prayer. We bring our thirst, confusion, and ache honestly before the Lord instead of hiding them. We agree with the psalmist that our soul’s answer is not escape but God Himself, His presence, His face, His steadfast love, and we choose to say with our own mouths, “I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”Prayer & Reflection Scriptures (AMP)Psalm 42 (AMP)“As the deer pants [longingly] for the water brooks,So my soul pants [longingly] for You, O God.My soul (my life, my inner self) thirsts for God, for the living God.When will I come and see the face of God?My tears have been my food day and night,While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’These things I [vividly] remember as I pour out my soul:How I used to go along before the great crowd of people and lead them in procession to the house of God,With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a great crowd keeping a festival.Why are you in despair, O my soul?And why have you become restless and disturbed within me?Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall again praise HimFor the help of His presence.O my God, my soul is in despair within me [the burden more than I can bear];Therefore I will [fervently] remember You from the land of the JordanAnd the peaks of [Mount] Hermon, from Mount Mizar.Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls;All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,And in the night His song will be with me,A prayer to the God of my life.I will say to God my rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me?Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’As a crushing of my bones [with a sword], my adversaries taunt me,While they say continually to me, ‘Where is your God?’Why are you in despair, O my soul?Why have you become restless and disquieted within me?Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him,The help of my countenance and my God.”There is One true God, the Creator of all things, revealed in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is One God and One Spirit Who has redeemed us all. I am Mathew Sekanjako, a believer in Christ Jesus (Yeshua HaMashiach), the one Son of God. I serve and confess God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This intercession is offered in faith, in obedience, and in love, for all who will listen.