Daily Devotion

Tuesday, February 10, 2026  

Today's Scripture
Psalm 42

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. (NRSV)

Psalm 42 was written more than two thousand years ago. However, the wording and feelings could have been written by any of us today. We generally question a merciful God. Even believers listen to our adversaries instead of to God.

We claim we believe in God and listen only to our Creator. Yet, when things do not go our way, who do we blame? Unfortunately, we blame God, asking, “God, why have you forgotten me/us?”

And to whom do we listen? Most of us tend to listen to our enemies, or adversaries, or those who do not believe in God. In so many instances, people seem to listen to our fellow finite beings, our fallible humans who certainly do not know what God knows. As I have taught philosophy and World Religions and published on them, the idea of theodicy comes in. Theodicy is the field of justifying the ways of an infinite, immortal God to finite, fallible, mortal people.

Instead of listening to our finite, mortal, fallible human adversaries when things go wrong, or our interpretations of the wrong, why not listen to God? Instead of blaming God for forgetting us, why not blame our finite selves for misinterpreting God’s infinite love, mercy, and care?

In philosophy, mere empiricism means people gain knowledge primarily through their senses, ignoring reason, faith, or the pre-sensory. Mere sensation is what marketing is all about. But don’t judge a book by its cover. Look inside. Most of us see the world and take the easy way out, instead of listening to God, of seeing God’s hand.

Prayer

Dear God, help me to see your hand in all things. Be with me as I wrongly blame you with my myopic vision. Help me to listen only to you and not those who are finite, myopic, and fallible as I am. Amen.

Written by Michael Kazanjian, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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