Psalm 63:1-4
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
We know that when David wrote this psalm, he was in the wilderness. It could have been when he was fleeing from Saul or when he was fleeing from his son, Absalom. In both cases, he was in danger for his life and weighed down by sorrow that those he had once been close to now desired to do him harm.
Yet David’s love and dependence on God jumps out vividly, as we read these words. His physical life is in jeopardy, but his spiritual life is very much alive and in fellowship with his God.
As I read these verses, I ask myself what keeps me from having the same thirst for God and the same utter dependence. The answers can be many, but at the core, I believe is that fact that I am distracted by my belief that I can do things on my own.
David is in a difficult situation, but he is not desperate. He knows where to look for his help and he knows that he can count on God’s unfading, faithful love.
The wilderness is certainly a place where we would not prefer to be, but it is very conducive to our dependence on God. There are no distractions and there are no human solutions for us, apart from God’s intervention.
I am convinced that I need the wilderness. I need trials to keep me close to God. I should not look at them as a curse, but as a blessing. I need to be stripped of my self-sufficiency, of all the distractions of the world.
When the distractions are out of the way, then God’s power and glory become more visible, and certainly more necessary. We have the privilege of a relationship with our glorious God. His power is complete and without equal. We are truly blessed.
The wilderness is God’s loving work of creating in us a thirst for Him, above all else. God’s care and love for us is truly better than life. Our fears should dissolve in the light of His glory and love.
Maybe it’s time to examine ourselves. Is our life characterized by this kind of longing and desire for God? Are we distracted by the cares of the world? Are we attracted by the “water” of this world? Are our eyes constantly fixed on God? Is it God’s power that we depend upon? Are we enthralled by His perfect love?
Our dependence on God can be measured by the amount of praise for Him that rolls off our lips, and how much our hearts motivate us to worship Him.
The more I become aware of my desperate need and of God’s immense love for me, the more truly these verses will resonate in my life.
We live in the wilderness, but at times we are fooled by mirages that the world offers. May our difficulties and trials produce a thirst for God and as a consequence, produce the dependence, praise, and worship that David modeled for us in this psalm.
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