God—you’re my God!
I can’t get enough of you!
I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God,
traveling across dry and weary deserts.So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
Psalm 63: 1-4, MSG
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you.
In preparation for the start of another teaching series (one that deals a lot with the life of David), I’ve been swimming in the Psalms and 1 Samuel quite consistently. After a mini, silent sabbatical I took over the course of last Monday, I came across Psalm 63, which invariably caused me to stop and take spiritual stock.
Go ahead. Review the verses above. Pour over each word on purpose. Make it your own: “Lord, you’re mine…and I can’t believe it. I can’t get enough of you. There’s nothing and no one for whom I hunger and thirst more than you. Worship, therefore, isn’t an option for me inasmuch as it’s an obsession. Only out of your love do I know what it means to live. The movement of my lips and limbs are simply billboard displays of a love that runs deep.”
Can I ask a question that I hope you’ll honestly consider? When’s the last time Psalm 63 described your spiritual state? Now, obviously, we have our ups and downs; (David did too). The Psalmist wasn’t always surging…(neither are we). But this word challenges us to chart our spiritual status. Turn the pages of the recent past and detail the descriptors you’d insert into your own psalm. What would you use?
“Disappointment with?”
“Disagreement over? “
“Discord between?”
“Division around?”
What about, “desperation for?” Mmmm. That’s where Psalm 63 slapped me in the face. Oh, we’ve been fervent in stating our case or winning our side. When’s the last time you’ve been desperate for God? That said, maybe our issue isn’t discord or disappointment; perhaps the problem isn’t a lack of disagreement or division; rather, could it be that we’re devoid of desperation? What if the locus of our concern was on the latter and not the former? Have you felt distance? The Psalmist reminds us: the depth of our relationship with Him is proportionate to our desperation for Him.
