Psalm 63:1

Psalm 63:1

A longing for God 

This Psalm is credited to David at a time when he was in the Desert of Judah. In other words, he had been banished from Jerusalem and the tabernacle and his friends and family and was living as a fugitive in a barren place. As ever, his enemies have conspired against him and David is, once more an outcast, but one who still trusts in the Lord. How he longs and thirsts for fellowship as he recalls the good times. In all of this we get a sense of the depth of David’s relationship with the Lord God, he speaks of one who is his dearest friend and of whom he dreams in the night hours. As ever, there is the anticipation of being restored, of returning to Zion, of his enemies being defeated. 

It would be such a blessing to just study this beautiful Psalm from David’s viewpoint, however we too have our times in the desert, when the world turns against us, when our enemies take control, when intimate fellowship with the Lord seems like a distant memory and when we long for restoration. It will be useful to link our own experiences with David, to take comfort from the fact that he understands them, but we also need to learn awareness, for who is to say when the desert place may beset us again? 

 

v1        It seems that to seek to add anything to this verse will actually detract from it. Can any of us express our spiritual longings more succinctly? I have discovered that the use of the word “earnestly” literally means early in the morning, before sunrise. In other words, long before his colleagues and friends are up and about, as the first rays of the rising sun lighten the horizon, David is awake and seeking the Lord. Such is the depth of his longing that he feels like a parched desert traveller who cannot find water. Have we ever been in that place where we desperately long to be close to the Lord again? It’s time to search our hearts if we have never felt such longings!

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