“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.”
Do you ever have the sense that you live in a
dry and weary land where there is no water?
I grew up in Michigan where you can’t go more than six miles without
running into water. I lived about a mile
from Lake Michigan which is over 22,000 square miles of fresh water. This idea of a dry and weary land is a little
hard for me to relate to.
I was once privileged to spend a few days in
a spiritual retreat at a Franciscan monastery in Arizona. What a different environment to where I grew
up! Talk about a dry and thirsty
land! However, I’m not convinced that
David is writing about the meteorological maladies of Israel with this
comment. I suspect that he is speak of
the state of his spirit, and he feels dusty, dry, dead, and lonely.
In the 16th Century, St. John of the
Cross talked about such an experience as the dark night of the soul. It was a period of time of spiritual crisis
where one struggles with knowing and being united with God. I suspect we can all resonate with that. Perhaps we’ve all experienced a time when we’ve
wanted God to show up so badly that it hurt, when we’ve looked around wild-eyed
asking, “God, where are you?”, and we’ve been at the point of despair wanting
nothing more than to hear from God.
So what did David do in his time of spiritual
struggle? He turned to God’s Word and
promises to remember and receive.
“I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,”
says David. He went to worship. He remembered God’s mighty deeds. We, too, gather for worship to be reminded of
what God has done for us – and to receive once again the benefits of God’s
work; specifically the forgiveness Jesus won for us with His death and resurrection. David focuses us on God’s steadfast love to
face the days ahead and also to give us hope for the moment.
David continues, “My soul will be satisfied
as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when
I remember you upon 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 will sing for joy.” His past experiences of God’s salvation focus
him for the future. As God has redeemed
us, so we are certain that He will save us.
This is why it is so important for us to meditate upon the cross and to
bring to mind over and over the great cost Jesus paid to atone for our
sins. It is not to make us feel more
wretched, but to put us in awe of how vast Christ’s love is for us so that we
will ask, “How will He not also give us all things?”
To be sure, those who seek to destroy God’s
people will, themselves, be destroyed.
This is not a happy occurrence, except that it will happen in the joyful
moment of Christ’s return and will signal that our struggles – and our sense of
thirst and hunger for God’s presence – are over.
For now though, David’s words are our words
for our walk in this world, “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”
O God, You are always near me, even when I do not sense it. Help me to remember how greatly You have blessed
me; that You gave Your Son to die and rise for me! Make me confident in Your goodness and help
me cling to You and let me be upheld by You that I may share Your love with
others. Amen.
Comments