Seek, Thirst, Faint (Psalm 63:1–11)

Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of two books on a Christian perspective of politics. She is a PHD candidate and a podcaster—and she loves her church and children in the church.

She recently recounted an experience in her church during a children’s talk. The pastor had invited all the children to the front while the adults remained seated, and had asked the children, “If Jesus was physically here today, what would you ask him?”

Kaitlyn said that he mind immediately began running to all the questions she would ask: questions about theology, philosophy, and suffering in the world. She rattled off dozens of questions in her head before any of the children had opportunity to answer.

As she was thinking of all the questions she would ask, her thoughts were interrupted by a little girl who raised her hand, in answer to the pastor’s question, and said, “I would ask if he would have a tea party with me.” A little boy’s hand shot up, and he answered, “I would ask if he would go outside and play ball with me.” Kaitlyn said that, in that moment, she felt rebuked. While all she could think of was the answers to her big theological, philosophical, and life questions, the children simply wanted to spend time with Jesus. With childlike faith, they prized his presence more than his answers.

David knew something of this passion for God’s presence. Psalm 63 was written “when he was in the wilderness of Judah.” Probably, he was there while fleeing the murderous coup of his son Absalom (1 Samuel 15–17).

During this time, David was exiled from Jerusalem and therefore from the tabernacle. In an old covenant context, where tabernacle (or temple) worship was paramount, to be exiled from the tabernacle (or temple) might bring on feelings of being exiled from God. David felt this exile deeply and expressed a heartfelt longing for God’s presence.

The structure of the psalm is not easy to detect, and different interpreters have outlined it differently. This is hardly surprising, for, as Leupold recognises, “when the heart speaks with a strong gush of emotion, we should not expect the coldly reasoned arrangement of thought that characterises a scientific treatise.”

While a great deal could be said about this psalm, our attention will narrow to one particular focus: longing for God’s presence. From this perspective, we can locate a fourfold movement in the psalm.

Exiled from the tabernacle, and fleeing for his life, David deeply and keenly sensed his need for God. He does not begin the psalm by demanding answers, but by pleading for God’s presence. “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” (v. 1). Like those children in the children’s talk, he valued God’s presence over God’s answers.

David describes his longing for God in stark terms: earnest seeking, soul thirst, fainting flesh. Even though he was separated from the ordinary means of experiencing God, he knew that God could meet with him in his exile. Leupold notes, “The [worship] of the sanctuary as such, though beloved by the writer, is not all important; he is able to have fellowship with God apart from the outward aids to worship.” He regards “God rather than these forms as essential.”

David sensed his need for God completely—in mind, soul, and body. His need for God entirely enveloped him. As he looked at the physical wilderness around him, he sensed within him “a dry and weary land where there is no water.” His soul needed God as his body needed water.

This is the sort of longing for God that we should have—in good times and bad. It is sometimes easier in times of deep distress to sense your need for God, but mature Christian living understands its need for God in the wilderness and the pasture. Alexander Maclaren is correct: “In the region of the devout life the paradox is true that we long precisely because we have.”

Do you long for God? Seek him? Thirst for him? Faint for him? If you sense this longing, where do you go to have it met?

The first place David looked for God was in the fellowship of his people.

While he was, in that moment, physically exiled from the tabernacle, he looked back on tabernacle worship with great fondness and longing. He recalled with great longing worship “in the sanctuary” where he had formerly beheld God’s “power and glory.” “Power and glory” are not a reference to ecstatic miraculous manifestation, but to the ordinary, God-ordained forms of worship, which, when carefully practised, reminded worshippers of the gospel truths of sin and atonement by God’s appointed means. These displays of God’s “steadfast love” resulted in praise, blessing, and lifting of hands.

David had not willingly separated himself from tabernacle worship; he was forced out of regular gathered worship due to circumstances beyond his control. But he was not comfortable with it. He badly missed the gathering of God’s people for worship and longed for those days. He eagerly anticipated the day when he would again be able to gather with God’s people for worship—though he knew that, while he waited, he could still enjoy intimacy with God.

Corporate worship is one of God’s ordinary means for his people to experience intimacy with him. When we willingly cut ourselves off from the gathered worship of God’s people, we should not be surprised if we find ourselves in a dry and weary land where there is no water. There are times and situations when, in God’s providence, we are hindered from gathering, but we should never grow comfortable with that lot. Our soul should long and our flesh faint for intimacy with God in the context of corporate worship.

Corporate worship is one of God’s ordained means for us to behold his “power and glory.” This power and glory are not manifested ordinarily in miracles and ecstatic experiences. God’s power and glory are displayed when the church—in reading, in singing, in praying, in preaching, and in the sacraments—focuses on the gospel truths of deliverance from sin and redemption in Jesus Christ. Where the gospel is read, sung, prayed, preached, and witnessed in the sacraments, God’s power and glory are on display.

And yet, while he longed for a return to corporate worship, he was isolated from the tabernacle through no fault of his own. As desperately as he wanted to, he could not gather with God’s people for worship. Did this, then, mean that he could not experience intimacy with God? Not at all.

Even isolated from the temple, David knew that he could be “satisfied” in his seeking, thirsting, and fainting for God. He could still praise God—“when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night.” He knew that, even isolated from the temple, he could yet experience intimacy with God.

In Jewish thought, the night was divided into three sections or “watches.” The picture here is of David, unable to sleep, using the time to “remember” God’s kindness and “meditate” on his truth. This would again drive him to “praise with joyful lips” (v. 5) and “sing for joy” (v. 7), much as he would have done in the context of tabernacle worship. As he meditated on God’s truth, he remembered that God was his “help” (v. 7) even in the trying time he was facing and that he could find refuge “in the shadow of your wings” (v. 7)—a tender image of a baby bird gathering for safety under its mother’s wings.

The result of this meditation and remembering is found in v. 8: “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” The Hebrew word translated “clings” has a dual meaning: It means both to hold fast (as in the ESV) and to follow. The NKJV and CSB try to capture these dual meanings by translating it as, “My soul follow close behind you” (NKJV) and, “I will follow close to you” (CSB). As David meditated on God’s truth and remembered his past mercies, he followed and clung to God. It is a picture of intimate embrace and obedience.

As children of God, we have the enormous privilege of pursuing intimacy with him even outside of corporate worship. This psalm urges us to do so. David was not a Sunday morning only Christian—or a Saturday morning only Jew. He daily took time to thoughtfully reflect on God’s truth—and so should we.

Daily Bible reading is something that often leaves Christians feeling guilty—at least, when they haven’t done it. “God must be punishing me because I don’t read my Bible every day.” We should be careful of thinking like that because the opportunity for daily Bible reading is a very new thing in the history of redemption. Until the invention of the printing press in the 1500s, no Christian read his or her Bible every day. Rather than looking at Bible reading as some form of ritual obligation, we should consider it a great privilege: We have privileged access to God’s word that most Christians throughout history—and many today—do not have! We have far greater opportunity to remember God and meditate on his truth than David ever did. Why would we neglect it? Why would we not take this opportunity to pursue intimacy with God?

There is no right or wrong way to engage Scripture. You can read a chapter a day and take three years to get through the Bible, or you can read large chunks and get through it in a matter of months. You can take an entire year to study one particular book of the Bible or read a broad spectrum of biblical genres throughout the week. You can read Scripture or listen to Scripture. These are privileges and considerations that David never had.

At the same time, don’t neglect to remember God’s kindness to you personally in the past. How has God answered your prayers? What providential kindnesses have been evident in your life? How have you seen God at work in the lives of family, friends, and colleagues? Remember what God has done.

Charles Austin Miles was an American pharmacist and hymn-writer, whose hobby was photography. He found that he could read his Bible by the red light of the dark room while developing photos, and so it became his habit to do so. Once, while reading the Gospel of John as photographs developed, he came upon John 20, where Mary came to the tomb after the resurrection. He read of her despair when she found the tomb empty and believed that Jesus’ body had been stolen. He read of her joy when Jesus met her at the tomb. When he finished reading the story, he found that the muscles in his hands were sore from gripping the Bible so hard as he read. He felt as if he had been transported to that early, first-century morning, and set about to capture that experience in song:

The lyrics sound overly sentimental, but the hymnist is simply describing a sense of intimacy with God through privately remembering and meditating on him, as David describes in this psalm.

As he remembered God’s kindness and promises to him, David was restored to a place of quiet confidence:

God had anointed David as king, and so he was confident that God would vindicate him as such. The coup plotters, leaders, and participants would be destroyed, but David—“the king”—would “rejoice in God.” Indeed, “all” who, like David, “swear by him shall exult.”

The intimacy that David experienced with God resulted in rejoicing and exulting—in celebration—even in the face of overwhelming opposition. He sought God and found him. He thirsted for God and was quenched. He fainted for God and was revived.

Perhaps you think that that is all good and well for David, but how do I know it’s true for me? I am not God’s anointed king of his chosen people? How do I know that I can find such intimacy with God? How can I be confident that God even desires this intimacy with me? Let me suggest three proofs, as we bring this to a close.

First, we know God desires intimacy with his people because of the incarnation. Jesus Christ—the eternal Son of God—literally became human so that we could experience intimacy with God. He lived among us, living our sorrows and pain. He went to a Roman cross and died a criminal’s death in our place, for our sins, so that we could be invited into intimacy with God. He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, where he sits today interceding for his people, inviting us to come boldly to his throne of grace. The incarnation proves that God desires intimacy with his people.

Second, we know that God desires intimacy with his people because of the Holy Spirit. Jesus returned to heaven, but he did not leave us alone. He sent the Holy Spirit—the Comforter—to be with us so that we can continue experiencing intimacy with God. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee that God wants intimacy with his people.

Third, and finally, we know that God desires intimacy with his people because Jesus is coming back one day, and when he does, “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Do you find yourself where David was—seeking, thirsting, fainting for intimacy with God? Then seek him corporately, be satisfied with him privately, and celebrate consistently that he wants intimacy with you as surely as you want it with him.

AMEN