DAY 13 FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

PSALM 42

1 As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. 2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him? 3 Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?”
4 My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!
5 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and 6 my God!
Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you— even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar. 7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me. 8 But 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.
9 “O God my rock,” I cry, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief, oppressed by my enemies?” 10 Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, “Where is this God of yours?”
11 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!



Julius Caesar's bloody assassination on March 15, 44 B.C., forever marked March 15, or the Ides of March, as a day of infamy. It has fascinated scholars and writers ever since. Caesar was thought to be a god and that his name would rise above all names. Quite frankly, this generation knows him more for a salad dressing and a casino. Such is the legacy.

In reality, most know Julius Caesar as a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the conspiracy against the Roman dictator of the same name, his assassination and its aftermath. It is one of several Roman plays that he wrote, based on true events from Roman history, which also include Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra.
Although the title of the play is Julius Caesar, Caesar is not the main character in its action; he appears in only three scenes, and is killed at the beginning of the third act. The protagonist of the play is Marcus Brutus, and the central psychological drama is his struggle between the conflicting demands of honor, patriotism, and friendship.


Caesar knew there were those who wanted to end his life. You can't be that powerful and not under attack. In a similar way, we live under such scrutiny. Being a child of the Everlasting King makes us a Prince or a Princess. Our Marcus Brutus is none other than the devil and his army of demons themselves. They are constantly causing drama in our lives to make us not trust in our Heavenly Father.

The psalmist spells this out in Psalm 42. Imagine a beautiful little deer drinking water at the brook with one eye on the landscape, looking for it's enemy. That is what our life is like. As the passage states, the enemy continually quesitons us, "where is your God?"

Where is He for you? Stop long enough to REMEMBER the things God has done for you. God has done so much more for us than we give Him credit When we can STOP, wherever that is, and praise the Lord for who He is, a strange thing begins to happen, we feel a sense of hope.

My prayer today on this "ides of March" is that you know you are NEVER alone!! God is always there for you to comfort and guide you. Verse 8 of this passage says, "the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and His song will be with me in the night." HE NEVER LEAVES US AND NEVER TAKES A BREAK FROM WATCHING US.

God Bless,

Jody