Thirsting

DEVOTION

PSALMS

THIRSTING

Ps 63

63:1 A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

9 They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth. 10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.

11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

NIV

The first thing we have to wonder is what kind of life was David living. Did he have to go to work every morning? Did he need to mow the lawn? Did he have to go grocery shopping or take the kids to soccer, or scouting or whatever else they do? Did he need to clean the house, cook or spend time with the grandchildren? Did he have to sit down and pay the bills, or worry about not having enough to pay the bills? There is a host of activities our generation has that may not ever been on the mind of David. His life was so much different than ours. In his youth he did work in the family business watching the sheep, protecting them from predators. But we have little more information about his daily life other then he spent a lot of time at warring other nations and killing a whole lot of people. We also know that after Saul realized that David was to be his replacement, he wanted to kill David. We know both Saul’s daughter Michel and his son Jonathan loved David. There were relationships much like ours, but life was still completely different than ours. So when David was inspired to write this song, he was in a dark place, not physically but emotionally, spiritually. Although we are not hiding out in a desert physically, like David was, we may be hiding within a spiritual desert. There are times when we might feel like our relationship with God is dry, as if in a wasteland. We have not actually heard from him in some time and we wonder if he is still keeping watch over us, as our Shephard, protecting us from predators. There are forces at work that would destroy us. This is when we have to take on the attitude, the mind-set of David as well. This is when we need to earnestly seek the Lord. The Hebrew actually says, O my God, in the morning I will thirst for you. Having had dry mouth, and the refreshing taste of a cool glass of water, milk or juice to restore the moisture, we can understand how we are to thirst after God in the morning, and the result of being refreshed. Without being refreshed by God each morning, we surely live in a dry and weary land. We also have memories of all the times God was doing such great things in our life. We can remember being in his is presence, his glory surrounding us. When we go to bed at the end of the day, we think about him, not about what we have to do tomorrow. We know our soul is refreshed each day being in his presence. We sing praises to him, we worship him, we raise our voice and our hands unto him, we rejoice because he has saved us. We will not perish, we will not go down to the grave, to that dark place outside the presence of God. The Lord is with us, and nothing can come against him or us for we are under his wing, we have his protection, he overshadows us with his love. Because we know the truth and we praise him we will be forever in his presence, but those who refuse to praise him, to acknowledge him, their voices will be silenced. Our voices will not, we will praise him forever. We will thirst for him each morning.