Lesson 12: Craving God’s Presence
 www.bible.com/bible/59/psa.119 

 81 My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word.
82 My eyes long for your promise; I ask, “When will you comfort me?”
83 For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke, yet I have not forgotten your statutes.
84 How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me?
85 The insolent have dug pitfalls for me; they do not live according to your law.
86 All your commandments are sure; they persecute me with falsehood; help me!
87 They have almost made an end of me on earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts.
88 In your steadfast love give me life, that I may keep the testimonies of your mouth.
 
We have longed for understanding, and now we grow to simply longing for God’s presence in our life. In Psalm 42:1 we see this longing compared to the way a deer longs for water; so our soul longs for God’s presence in our life. The salvation in verse 81 is not the salvation of our soul from death when we are first saved, but the salvation of our soul promised on the day when we receive new bodies from Him which will never again fall into sin (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).


This longing to be saved from our current life is a longing for two kinds of comfort. First, it is a longing because we see ourselves as needing Him desperately – verses 82 and 83. We feel dry and incomplete without His greater presence in our life.

It is also a longing because we see others around us offending His purity and holiness with sin. We begin to identify personally with God as people turn away from Him to find their own pleasures. Even though insults may be aimed at us personally, we are beginning to understand it is not truly us they hate, but God who lives in us. It seems sometimes as if we are almost alone in loving and serving God – but of course we are not, for God has other followers here on earth just as faithful as we are (see God’s answer to Elijah when he cried he was all alone in 1 Kings 18:19).

Verse 88 becomes our plea to God in this craving for His presence – His love will give us life so we may continue to serve Him for His kingdom.