Psalm 63

David spent significant time in the desert, in the wilderness.  His shepherd work as a boy likely took him into some remote locations.  Jealous, murderous King Saul chased him into and through some wild places.  Later in life, and when finally King of Israel, David’s son Absalom seeks to overthrow and replace his father, and once again, David finds himself on the run, in the wilderness.

This week we come to the conclusion of our Hungry for God series.  Our passage for the week is Psalm 63, “A psalm of David.  When he was in the Desert of Judah.”  We hope that you will take this week (how about right now!) to “soak” in this hungry-for-God prayer-poem.  

Everyone we meet in Scripture spent significant time in a wilderness of some kind: Adam and Eve, exiled from the Garden; Abraham, leaving the familiar and heading he knew not where; Moses, the people of Israel, David, Elijah, Elisha … Mary, “a sword piercing her own heart.” Paul, writing letters from prison.  Ezekiel in a valley of dry bones. Esther and Daniel in the “wilderness” of opulent pagan palaces.  John on the rocky island of Patmos ... Jesus.

We often feel that our modern world, for all its progress and technological advances, nonetheless feels like a wilderness, a place where it is increasingly difficult to sustain a life that is worth living.  We have so much more, yet feel like we are becoming so much less.  We are very busy but wonder if any of it is really fruitful.  We live, in historical terms, in the greatest safety, yet are haunted by anxiety.  We “have everything we need,” but wonder if any of it is really what we want, or most need.

God does some of his finest work in the wilderness.  Our wilderness seasons can sharpen and deepen our hunger for God, because wilderness is a place, a season, in which all of our usual sources of nourishment, energy, security, direction and identity seem to dry up.  Whatever drives us into a wilderness – our own sin, the evil done to us by others, loss of health or work or relationship, or just “circumstances beyond control”— God is present in the wilderness, waiting to meet us, inviting us to draw nearer, come closer, go deeper.

So, please, sit with this psalm this week; soak in it, soak it in.  Allow David’s prayer to become your prayer – and find that his hunger for God can be contagious!

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.  Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.   I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.