Thirsty for God

Thirsty for God

Thirsty..... Have you ever been so thirsty you couldn't wait for the water? Thirst tells us that we need to drink! In fact if you are thirsty, that means you are seriously dehydrated!

Did you know that in Nairobi the urban poor pay 10 times more for water than in New York? Water is expensive and a precious commodity! Working among the slums of Nairobi showed me just how valuable water is and how each drop should be used wisely.

Psalms 63 talks about being thirsty for God. Are you thirsty for God?

Verse 1 says, "O God, thou art my God..." This is a personal experience - MY God. Not just the God of others, but MY personal God. Have you had a personal experience with God yourself? Are you sure that God is really your own personal God? We must have a personal relationship with God for ourselves - not depending on the experience of others.

Continuing on: "...early will I seek thee..." When does it say I should seek God? Early! This indicates getting up early to spend time with God and making Him our personal God!

Think about the example of Jesus. "The long, exciting day was past, and Jesus sought rest. But while the city was wrapped in slumber, the Saviour, 'rising up a great while before day,' 'went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.' Mark 1:35."  Ministry of Healing, page 29  So just like Jesus got up early to spent time with His heavenly Father, so we need to follow His example and do the same.

Now for the part about being thirsty.... "...my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." There's the thirsty part! Do our souls thirst for God like what David is describing? Jesus is the only one who can satisfy us! He is the living water, springing up in life everlasting. Psalms 84:2 says, "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."

Is your soul longing and crying out after God? That should be our heart's desire and cry. "No human agent can supply that which will satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul." Mount of Blessing, page 18. If we seek to supply our thirst and hunger with things of the world, or with other people, we will find that we will not be satisfied. God has created each of us with a void in our heart that can only be filled with Him. And yet so often, we try to fill it with everything else except God and soon discover that we are still empty.

"As the weary traveler seeks the spring in the desert and, finding it, quenches his burning thirst, so will the Christian thirst for and obtain the pure water of life, of which Christ is the fountain." Mount of Blessing, page 19. And what is the promise when we seek for the pure fountain of the water of life?

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."  Matthew 5:6 As we seek for God, we will find Him (Jer. 29:13) and we shall be filled. But we will not be filled if we don't seek earnestly for this experience! Too often we are content with just a bit of filling or no filling at all. So we must earnestly seek for complete and full filling of our hearts with Jesus Christ and His living water.

Then David continues on: "To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary." The "glory" here is referring to God's character. Where can we see God's glory and His character? Through the sanctuary and through God's law. The more we behold God's character, the more we are changed into His image. "We are to look to Jesus; for 'we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory' (2 Corinthians 3:18). You are to find your completeness by beholding the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Faith and Works, page 108

The more we come close to Jesus, the more sinful we appear in our own eyes and we long to be more like Jesus in our characters and daily life. That's the "thirsting" after God and His righteousness and the promise is that we will be filled. Psalms 27:4 says, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple."   

We should long to spend more and more time with God each day! It's not a burden or a drudgery! It's a delight and a blessing to spend time with the King of the Universe! If some great man of this world were to invite us to a royal banquet or appointment, we should find it so important and wouldn't miss it for anything. But so often, we don't value spending quality time with the greatest King of the Universe - Jesus Christ!

Then verse 3 and 4 says, "Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name." When we see how much God has done for us and how great His character is, we will praise Him more! We need to study God's character and learn more about Him each day. How can we really praise God if we don't really know much about Him or who He is? This is another reason why we need to have our devotions every morning! How can we testify like David that God's lovingkindness is better than life, if we haven't discovered that for ourselves?

Then he adds that "while I live, I will bless thee." Certainly we can't praise God when we are dead, so why not focus on praising Him now while we are alive! Without God, we can't even live, so why not spend our life praising and blessing him? Why not seek to bring praise and joy to the heart of the one who has made us and created us to live?

Verse 5 says, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips." What is this marrow and fatness it is talking about? This is a symbol to denote rich food and the comparison is between the pleasure of serving God and the satisfaction derived from food when we are hungry. That's the same imagery as the first part of the chapter!

Earlier the chapter was talking about being thirsty for God and now it talks about having satisfaction from being fully and completely filled in our souls. Truly God can satisfy our hearts in ways that no one else or anything else can! When we are truly satisfied with God in our lives, we long for nothing else. Nothing else!!! And then we have reason to praise God!

The reason why many times we don't praise God or it seems we can't think of anything to praise God for is because we haven't experienced this blessed peace that comes when we are truly satisfied in God and God alone. But as we have this experience, what a blessed peace comes and we can't help but praise God! :)

Then verse 6 says, "When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches." What do you think about as you lay awake in bed? What do you think about as you fall asleep? Here David is saying, we should be remembering God upon our beds and thinking of Him even when we can't sleep!

Is Jesus the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning? Is He the last thing you think about before you go to sleep? This should be our goal but the devil comes in and seeks to crowd out our time with God and make us distracted with everything else so that Jesus doesn't come to our thoughts. We need to kick the devil out of our life and focus our thoughts and our life upon Jesus alone. Even during our free time do we think of spending time with God or do we think of pleasing ourselves?

We should always be turning our thoughts to God. Then verses 7 and 8 give us 2 reasons to praise and think always upon God.

"Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me."

1. Because God is our help.

If only we remembered what God has done for us in the past, we wouldn't have reason to worry or be stressed about the future. "We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history." Counsels for the Church, page 359

2. God sustains / upholds us.

Without God, we could not even breathe! He is our sustainer and upholds us with His righteous right hand (Isa. 41:10).

So this chapter has taught us many lessons about being thirsty for God! Let's ask God each day to help us be hungry and thirsty for Him each day and to fill our lives with Him.