Psalm 63
Bible Passage: Psalm 63
O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
~ Psalm 63:1-2
How I envy David!
To be able to exclaim “O God, You are my God” and then expressed how his soul thirsts for God and his flesh long for the Lord is something I must admit, I have never quite experienced.
Yes, I love God. Yes, I like to draw near to Him. But to feel how David felt…
The amazing thing was that David was in the wilderness when he said this. He was not in the palace nor in the sanctuary of the Lord. He was in the rough and wild. And yet, His faith allowed his circumstances and environment to be transformed into a worshipful experience. There he was hungry and thirsty but his deeper desires were spiritual. With his whole being, body and soul he yearned for God’s satisfying presence (Psalm 63:5; 42:1-2).
All of us have our physical senses that are satisfied by God’s creation. But we have also spiritual desires that can only be satisfied by Jesus alone (Heb 5:14). He is our Bread of Life (John 6) and also gives us the water of life by His Holy Spirit (John 4:1-14). And He promises that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake will be filled (Matt 5:6).
The question is whether we feed our spiritual desires or are they lying dormant and suppressed, as we focus only on the things of this world.
David had this spiritual appetite. And this did not come by accident.
David was always found in the sanctuary of God – worshipping Him (Ps 63:2; 27:4; 84:1-2). His mind was always set on the things of God and he did things to ensure that that the things in the house of God were set right – he returned the Ark to the rightful place… he prepared for the building of the temple… and he was always found praying and praising God.
His delight was always in going to the house of God and contemplating Him there.
Just reading this Psalm again made me realise how far I am from being a man of God.
Father, please forgive me for falling so far short of the example that David has shown us. May I thirst, long, lie awake. sing for joy, cling to You just as David did.