The Longing of Our Hearts
Have you ever been to a Christmas service at a church? Listened to Christian music on the radio or over Spotify? Read the New Testament? Odds are, if you have done any of these things, you have heard words, phrases, and concepts present and expressed in the book of the Psalms. This extensive book puts to words the deep longings of the human heart, the depths of grief and lament, anger at injustice, and praise to the Holy One. With such rich theology and understanding of the human experience, the psalms should be a regular read for the Christian journeyman as he or she presses on to the hope of heaven.
While numerous psalms have provided me with great encouragement, expressions of praise to God, and words for grief where I struggled to find them, a psalm that has always led me to a place of great adoration and worship to God is Psalm 63. This particular psalm expresses the longing in David’s heart for God in the wilderness and the contentment that he finds only in God in his need. With the setting in mind, we read David’s raw imagery in verse 1:
“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” (Ps. 63:1).
In the wilderness, David proclaims his posture. First, he affirms his relational standing with God. He calls out not to a deity foreign to him, but rather to a God he is already in relationship with. David calls out to his God. This relationship sets the background for his next proclamation: “earnestly I seek you” (Ps. 63:1). Instead of emphasizing a way out of the wilderness, David earnestly seeks his God before a solution is ever requested for his circumstances. His desire for God is compared to “thirsting” and “fainting” in a dry and waterless place, drawing a vulnerable connection to the difficult place and situation that David has found himself.
Why does David desire God with such longing, such need? We continue reading:
“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” (Ps. 63:2-4).
David looks to his powerful and glorious God, because God’s hesed “is better than life” itself. Hesed, a Hebrew word translated by the ESV here as “steadfast love,” attests to God’s unfailing love and faithfulness to His people. David understood himself as a recipient of God’s hesed, and he declares this faithfulness to be of more value than being alive. This understanding leads David to praise God with his lips, to bless Him throughout life. David’s God would be who he would lift his hands to in his need, no matter what came in life.
Ultimately, David desires God with great fervor because of who God is, His relationship to him, and His hesed to His people. Even in a place like the wilderness, David knows His covenant God is both the answer to his need and the proper object of his worship.
Have you ever found yourself in a seasonal “wilderness”? Let the words of King David in the first part of Psalm 63 and the truths attached to them instruct us. In the wilderness, remember who God is and His wonderful attributes. He is powerful and glorious. He is able to help us in our need. He is faithful to His people. If you belong to the family of God, God’s hesed extends to you as it did to David. Regardless of what life throws our way, God’s people revel in their God and His faithfulness to them. Along with David, let God fill the ultimate longing of our hearts and be the One that we look to in our time of need.