My Favorite Animal
Pause:
Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down and focus on Jesus.
Pray and ask him to open your eyes to see as you read the scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.
Read:
Psalm 42: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God.2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?”. 4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts. 5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God. 6 I[a] am deeply depressed; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your billows have swept over me. 8 The Lord will send his faithful love by day; his song will be with me in the night—a prayer to the God of my life. 9 I will say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?” 10 My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”. 11 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.
Going Deeper:
I know you probably haven’t been asked this question since elementary school, but what’s your favorite animal? Until recently, mine was always a tiger. Just picture the striped animal silently stalking its prey through the jungle. She’s magnificent, fierce, powerful, independent, free, solitary. Let’s face it, tigers are just plain cool. As an enneagram 8, I think I arrogantly fancied myself in the same way…until 2018.
During the first nine months of that year, I was confronted with a garden variety of challenging life circumstances—career stress, deceit within a relationship that meant a lot to me, brokenness in my family that had gone unnoticed for over a decade, confusion with calling, conflict within my church community, and the hope of a lifelong dream being dangled in front of me and suddenly taken away.
After everything came to a head in early September, I decided to take a retreat to allow myself time to process these events alone with the Father. And what better place to escape than Zion, the high holy mountain itself. Now granted, I went to the national park and not Jerusalem, but it had the same effect. For the entire eight hour drive, I was filled with an expectant heart of being able to draw near and commune with God for the next three days.
On the first evening just before dusk, God showed up.
As I was sitting alone by the Virgin River in the growing shadow of a huge monolith known as the Great White Throne, he gave me a picture. No, really, he gave me a literal picture. I’ve included it below. On just the other side of the river, not twenty feet away, a deer slowly emerged from the tall grass. The animal was clearly parched after a long, hot day and stooped its head to begin drinking from the gently flowing stream. This was an unforgettable moment that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
As I sat and stared, God brought Psalm 42 to mind, which begins, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so I long for you, God. I thirst for God, for the living God. When can I come and appear before God?” I encourage you to take a moment to read the entire psalm now, but one of the highlights is the reminder repeated in verses 5 and 11: “Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.”
This psalm spoke to me on a deep level. I was looking at a deer on the other side of the river, but it was like looking into a mirror at my soul—dejected, exhausted, completely depleted, from trying to navigate through these tumultuous times on my own power when what I needed to do was drop the façade, bow my head, and drink from the flowing streams of God’s goodness and grace. He alone provides living water that can quench our thirst, and even amid dejection and turmoil, he alone is worthy of our hope. Despite the challenges this world presents, he alone saves. Thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the answer to the question in the second verse is that we can always come and appear before God with Christ as our advocate, and the Father will respond and be faithful to provide. I join the psalmist in saying that I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.
2020 has been a hard year for many of us, but are we making it harder on ourselves by trying to white knuckle our way through on our own strength instead of humbly falling to our knees, returning to the cross, and wholeheartedly depending on the Father?
All my life, I have been pretending to be a tiger, a powerful predator fending for itself. And I’m still tempted to do so on a daily basis. But in reality, my identity is much more accurately that of a deer, an exhausted and vulnerable animal of prey who is protected by a powerful God and has all of its needs readily fulfilled by its Creator. The circumstances in my life didn’t immediately change after my retreat, but I was given new strength after God graciously brought me to my knees and taught me to depend on him.
And that’s the story of how I picked a new favorite animal at the ripe young age of 29.
Pray:
Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.
Listen:
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning?
Apply:
What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?