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June 30, 2025

Why Our Hearts Ache for More: Lessons from Psalm 42

by Jason Neill

Scripture reading: Psalm 42

I really like cookies! They're one of my favorite types of desserts, even more so than cakes, pies, peach cobbler, or cheesecake. A cookie cake, which is just an oversized cookie, works too; I wouldn't turn it down. The problem, however, is that I get so excited at the sight of cookies it's hard to just have one. If one is good, then two, three, or four are better—at least that's what I initially think as I enjoy eating them. The real issue arises after the fact, when consuming so much sugar makes me thirsty. I must confess that I feel bad too when I consume too many cookies; I feel sick to my stomach.

The universal variable in humanity is that we all have desires and attempt to fulfill them, sometimes by less than savory means (pun intended). For instance, the cookies I eat don't leave me satisfied; I inevitably want more the next day. The interesting thing about desires is that I think they point to something else—something divine. God, in fact. Jesus of Nazareth, specifically.

What we find in Psalm 42 is an expression of the Sons of Korah's desires, as stated above the psalm. Verse one reads, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (Psalm 42:1-2, NIV). The psalmist expresses a desire for God, doing so in an elegant manner. He illustrates this thirst using a simile (e.g., using the words "like" or "as"). Just as deer pants for water, something material, so his soul thirsts for God. He recognized his thirst was for something immaterial. Water satisfies, but only temporarily. God, on the other hand, is what our true longings point toward. He ultimately satisfies us.

I've mentioned him in a previous post, but C. S. Lewis has influenced me significantly on this topic. He wrote the following in his book Mere Christianity:

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same."

Maybe the next time you drink a cold cup of water, especially on these hot summer days, it can remind you of who truly satisfies our deepest longings.

For more on this topic, I recommend Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.