Panting deer Prayer

The Canon of Prayer: Day 27

We need to be like the deer panting after the water brook.

"As the deer pants for the water brook so pants my soul after thee" (Psalms 42:1).

The psalmist uses the panting deer in psalms 42:1 to illustrate its immense longing to be refreshed by the waters of the water brooks. Pant, is defined as "having a frantic desire, to long for breathlessly and intense eagerness, to yearn"

We must have a longing, a desire for God that is unmatched by any other desire. The panting deer depicts the same fervor by which we are to seek first God's Kingdom. The palmist said in the same way the deer pants after the water brook he longs for God. I picture in my mind a deer leaping through the woods, over and around every obstacle in the way to get to the water. Water is said to be the most critical of all nutrients.

A deer can live about a month with little to no food but can only survive a few days without water. With a moderate restriction on water the deer will begin to lose weight and stop feeding- it’s dying. So the deer is in frantic search for what it needs to survive, water. Being still before God is our water, it’s what we need to survive; like the deer we cannot afford to go even a little while without it before it begins to affect us. We like the deer will begin to waste away spiritually. We must pant after the presence of God undeterred by any obstacle, because it is most critical to our spiritual life.

"O God, Thou art my God: early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."

Psalms 63:1

Seek First The Kingdom

The same way the deer pants for water, we too must seek first the Kingdom of God …Seek, implies much more than simply looking for something but it expresses the same longing to obtain a desired thing as do the panting deer. Seek means "to endeavor, to try hard to do or achieve something; it implies earnest and conscientious activity intended to do or accomplish what one desires...Above all else in life, Jesus tells us to make seeking His Kingdom our number one priority.

Prayer

Father we thirst and long for you as our number one priority. We need you more that the panting deer. I declare the water of your spirit is flowing in my life; rivers in the dry areas, streams in the valley place of my life and wells that don’t run dry.

This is the decree of the King