Psalm 63

Good morning. My name is Spencer Daughtry, and I am the youth minister at Watkinsville First UMC. I am so grateful to be here with you today and for our UM connection that allows for us to gather together during this season of Lent.

Our scripture today is from Psalm 63: 

Hear now the word of God.

Scripture: 

O God, you are my God; 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.

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; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips

when I think of you on my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night,

for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Psalm 63: 1-8 NRSVue

This is the word of God for us, the people of God. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. 

Holy God, we come before you in this season of Lent seeking you in your word as though we are searching for water in a dry and weary land. Speak your Word to us, your Word of life that cleanses us, renews us, and sets us free. Speak your Word in which you give yourself to us. Speak your Word that allows us to reflect your love. Speak to us; for we are hungry and thirsty for you. Amen.

During this season of Lent, we think and talk a lot about desire. Leading up to Ash Wednesday, the question is it what do we desire and thirst for enough in our lives that giving it up would make a difference for us? Or maybe the question is what are practices that we could do in order to make us desire and long for God on a deeper level? And now we find ourselves in the midst of Lent, reflecting on if we are growing and desiring God in the way we intended to in this season. 

Our Psalm today addresses what it means to desire and long for God, to find satisfaction that leads to praise, wonder, and security. The superscription of our Psalm today locates it in a time when David is in the Judean wilderness or desert. It could be referring to when a young David ran from Saul or an older David as a king when he fled Jerusalem while his son, Absolam, prompted an insurrection, or another time that we don’t know about. 

But regardless of who this is about or when it happened, the psalmist is in the desert. This desert is not only hard to navigate but does not yield any water or food or sustenance of any kind. This is a place where hunger and thirst and dire physical needs abound, and is not exactly the prime place for someone to be if they want to live. We can imagine and feel the psalmists hunger and thirst when we read this Psalm in this context. But, the psalmist is not concerned about this physical longing, but instead, the spiritual longing takes precedence.

“O God, you are my God; 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.” The soul is thirsty for God. The flesh faints for God. The whole being in and out seeks God and only God. This seeking of God is experienced in and connected to dire thirst and hunger, in real tangible physical ways. And again, the spiritual need for God somehow take priority over the tangible need for water, food, and shelter. The psalmist remembers God’s presence and protection even in the face of being hunted. This is more than just an interest in God, it is real, actual, physical need for God’s presence. Even in the midst of trouble, we read the words of this Psalm that are filled with energy and excitement and trust and love and longing. God’s power, glory, love, help, and protection are raised up in the midst of all of this. The psalmist longs for and finds satisfaction and help from God alone, their soul is thirsty for God’s presence. 

Jesus talked about being thirsty a good bit. In his encounter with the Samarian woman at the well, Jesus initially asked her for a drink, to which she responded “why are you, a Jew, asking for a drink from me, a woman from Samaria?” Jesus then answers her by saying that if she knew who was asking her for a drink, she would have asked him for a drink, and he would give her living water that will cause all those who drink of it to never thirst again. And later, according to John’s gospel, as he is hanging on the cross on Good Friday, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” Jesus thirsted, and Jesus provided the living water that would cure all thirst. Jesus shows us what it means to have physical and spiritual thirst and with our Psalm today, points us to the one who ultimately fulfills this need. 

As I’m sure you know from experience, our desires often lead us astray. No matter how much we scroll on social media, how much we indulge, or how much we buy, it is never enough. The voices around us constantly remind us that what we have is not enough, that we are not enough. This is reinforced around us through targeted ads, commercials, and everything we see around us  that tells us over and over again that we don’t have enough- but yet this one thing that we buy or have will complete us and fill us up. It never does. This desire to have more stuff and to protect the stuff that is already ours is deep within us. We are in a system that tells us that our value comes from having more valuable things. 

In our world and in our own lives, which are often filled with desires that are not pointed to God this Psalm speaks to us and gives us an alternative way to think of our desires. In some ways, Psalm 63 is totally counter to what our desires oftentimes are. The thought that we could possibly long for and seek after God in the same way that we have been trained to seek material things seems foreign and impossible to us. Yet, in this season of Lent that we are in, this Psalm reminds us of the constant need to re-center our values and lives around God, who alone is truly worthy of our love and longing. 

But as I read and thought of this Psalm, it made me feel like my Lenten goals fell quite short of what Psalm 63 suggests. Am I really hungering and thirsting for God in such an intense, tangible and sacrificial way by spending more time in prayer, giving up social media, fasting, and doing these seemingly small things? But I am then reminded that Lent is not about what we do and how we appear on the outside, it is about reshaping the way we approach God and desire God within our deepest being. Lent is about strengthening our relationship with God so that we experience this longing and ultimately find satisfaction in God when we find ourselves in times of hunger, thirst, and great need. 

If you are like me today and don’t feel like you quite are living up to the zeal for God that the Psalmist exhibits here, that is okay. Unlike the world around us, God is not competing for our attention by tempting us with bigger, better, and nicer things. Instead, God invites us to come to the table with whatever longing, whatever desire we do have. In the last verse that we read, the Psalmist writes “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”  God invites us to be clingy, to simply hold on to the one who won’t let us go, whose right hand will constantly hold us up. Because for our lives, it’s not a matter of whether we desire, but what we desire. And as a result of this desire, what is it that we cling to? Where do we find our security and sustenance when we’re  in the desert? The only place where we can truly find this security and confidence and home is in the presence of God. 

 God is not concerned with how much we seem like we have it all together on the outside or how worthy we may think we are to receive his love, grace and mercy. God is concerned with where we actually are, and where our desires actually lie. Our God is not one who works through size and power, but who works through the small, vulnerable, seemingly useless things and people to change the world.  So we are called to come to God’s table, to come into God’s presence with our actual selves- no matter where we have been or how worthy we feel like we are. We are called to bring any amount of hunger, thirst, and awareness to God, to become mindful of the ways that God is already working in us and around us. As our great hymn writer Charles Wesley wrote in the last line of the last verse of the hymn “Love Divine, All Love Excelling,” we are to be “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” Lent is a time not to do over-the-top, amazing things to try and earn God’s favor, but to cling to God, hold on to God, and even to lose ourselves in God’s love, in wonder, and praise even in the mundane parts of life. Lent is a time for us to come to God’s table over and over again, to be satisfied and filled up and reminded that when we cling to God, we will be kept safe. 

No matter where you are today, you are welcomed and cared for in the presence of God. Come to God’s table with whatever desire, longing, and thirst you have, and it will be satisfied like nothing else can satisfy. Seek the one who can provide true living water, who is the bread of life and your soul will be full like you are dining at a rich feast. The season of Lent continually invites us to turn from our inclinations and desires and those things that will never satisfy and instead turn into a deeper relationship with God, who holds and satisfies us even in dry and weary lands. Thanks be to God that we don’t go through these seasons alone and that the one who conquered death and is our living water is with us always.

Closing Prayer: 

Loving God, You are the one who satisfies our deepest thirst, the one who fills our souls with your presence. In this season of Lent, draw us closer to you. Turn our desires away from things that will never satisfy and lead us to the well of your living water, where we find life, hope, and wholeness.