ODJ: My One Thing

April 26, 2018 

READ: Psalm 42:1-11 

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Saviour and my God! (vv.5-6).

The song “You Are My One Thing”, by songwriter Hannah McClure voices a deep cry of the heart to walk closely with God and experience His presence. The lyrics are a beautiful reminder of how our relationship with God can transform our lives. Hannah says that the song came out of a season when God was calling her back to remember the time where she’d first experienced the depth of His love for her.

As I allow the lyrics of the song to wash over me, I’m reminded of the longing for intimacy with God expressed in Psalm 42. The psalmist wrote, “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2). The psalmist wept as he yearned for the time when he had led crowds of worshippers in offering thanksgiving to God (vv.3-4). Now, however, discouragement threatened to drag him down into a dark pit of despair. He was overwhelmed with the feeling that God had abandoned him (vv.5-7,9,11).

Yet throughout the psalm, the author wrestled with his negative thoughts. Like Hannah McClure, he found strength in remembering and celebrating God’s faithfulness to him in the past. So he consistently counteracted every rush of despair with a statement of truth about God. He confessed that even when “surging tides” swept over him, “each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life” (vv.7-8). He vowed, “I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Saviour and my God!” (vv.5,11).

Is your relationship with God the passion that fills your life? As you hunger and thirst for Him, the lover of your soul, may you be truly satisfied and filled with His presence (John 7:37-38).

—Ruth O’Reilly-Smith

365-day plan: 2 Kings 11:1-21