worship song review: As The Deer

As far as worship choruses go, As The Deer is an older one, going back to the 1980s. It’s not a terrible song, it even has some good statements in it, but it suffers from being overly sentimental. To hopefully explain better what I mean, here’s the psalm this song is based upon.

Psalm 42

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,  my salvation
6 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.
7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.

This isn’t an easy psalm to get one’s thoughts around, as it swings between hope and turmoil, the author asking his soul why it is downcast and then lamenting about the things happening to him.

So, when the psalm writer says that he longs for God like a deer pants for water, I don’t think he was writing about a slightly parched deer. The author is in a bad place. Some parts of this psalm seem to echo the book of Job. His desire for God is to the point of real desperation; he feels like God has forsaken him, his enemies are taunting him because God seems to have forsaken him, and even his attempts to recall God’s steadfast love only help for a moment.

This is a far cry from the gauzy and overly sentimental nature of As The Deer.

Outside of that, there are a few other quibble with the lyrics that are worth mentioning, too.

You alone are my heart's desire 

And I long to worship you 

I’d say it’s questionable when we are made to sing lyrics that we really cannot honestly say. How many of us can honestly say that God alone is our heart’s desire? Maybe he should be, but is he really?

And, really, if you long to worship God, just do ahead and do it, and don’t bother with saying you want to do it.

And I love you more than any other 

So much more than anything 

This is another example of not-very-honest lyrics. Yes, we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, as that is the greatest commandment. But can we honestly say that we keep that commandment? Can we really look to God and tell him, maybe even brag to him, about how we love him more than anyone or anything else?

I know I can’t.