Praise the Lord!
The Lord gave us a glorious and gracious long weekend. The weather was warm and brilliant. Janice, Jeremy, Micah, Simeon, Laureen, and Alice had a wonderful weekend in beautiful Burlington, Vermont. Our friends Linda and Warren went all out to spoil them. Now they are all back in their respective dwelling places, having arrived safely last evening. We heard from Sunita, who is currently in Uganda, where she arrived safely. Sunita tells me Uganda is a beautiful country. It is called the pearl of Africa. It is the size of England, and has a population of 42 million people. The dominant religion is the Christian Faith. The river Nile originates in Uganda and flows North. It is the mega-mango season in Uganda.
Jessica and Tom came home for the weekend. We had a very blessed time together. I had a weekend full with visitations, wedding, worship services, and a funeral. Because of Jesus we can do life and death well. The man who died had been blessed with two children, 4 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His son, daughter, and their families love Jesus, and are involved in serving Christ. Both son and daughter spoke about how their dad loved them, how he loved Jesus, and that they have the blessed assurance of seeing him in the presence of Jesus some day.
We were blessed with a marvelous Memorial Day yesterday. My brother Caleb and his wife Sandhya cooked lots of Indian foods, including all kinds of desserts. We praise Jesus for His generosity and grace.
The Psalm for Sunday was taken from Psalm 62. It is a psalm of King David, which he wrote while he was in the wilderness. There were two times when David was out in the wilderness of the Judean desert. The first time was when King Saul was hunting him down in the later chapters of 1 Samuel. The second time David was on the run was when his son Absalom had conspired against his own father and declared himself king, according to 2 Samuel. We know from Psalm 63:11 that David was the king when he wrote this psalm (Psalm 62), so the setting must have been when he was fleeing from Absalom, since he wasn’t king when Saul was chasing him. After David had sinned with Bathsheba and sent her husband, Uriah, to be killed in battle, Nathan the prophet rebuked him by saying, “You are the man”. In 2 Samuel 12:7, David was told that things were going to fracture in his own family in verse 11: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you…’” In 2 Samuel 15, David’s son Absalom obtained a chariot, some horses and 50 men. Then, for four years, he got up early and met with people at the city gate to resolve their legal claims. When people would bow down to him, he would take hold of them and embrace them. As a result, verse 6 tells us, “He stole the hearts of the men of Israel.” Absalom then set up a rival throne in Hebron and declared himself to be king. Instead of choosing to fight, David fled to the wilderness. Verse 30 reveals that David left Jerusalem weeping, his head covered in shame, the hot sand of the desert burning his royal feet as he ran for his life. David was probably wondering what was going on. This was his son, whom he dearly loved! This wasn’t supposed to happen! It didn’t make sense. He was lonely, sad, broken hearted, and afraid for his own life. He was betrayed by his boy, exiled from his own throne, and humiliated in the desert.
Are you experiencing something similar today? Are you faced with something that just doesn’t make sense? Have you been rocked by some bad news? Has someone pulled the rug out from under you? Do you feel like you’re just wandering in the wilderness? It’s not always bad to be in the wilderness. Wilderness wanderings create a thirst for God because when He’s all we have, He’s all we want. David had lost everything and now he was able to find the only thing that will truly satisfy, God Himself. Psalm 63 is a song that will lead us to true satisfaction no matter what has happened to us. Before David was forced into the wilderness he was obsessed with his own comfort and the satisfaction of his own needs. It was only when everything was taken from him that he became obsessed with God Himself once again, finding full satisfaction in his praise of Him. What are you obsessed with today? (An obsession is an “abnormal or intense pre-occupation; an irrational reverence or attachment.”) What is it that compels and constrains you? Is it your position? A hobby? A sport? Money? A relationship? Do you obsess about a possession? Are you preoccupied with your health or with your family? Or do you have an “irrational reverence and attachment” to God? How much God do you really want in your life? In Psalm 63, David refers to God 21 times in 11 short verses! He is obsessed with the Omnipotent, and attached to the Almighty. I suspect that most of you really want to find full satisfaction in your relationship with God. This reminds me of the man who bought an expensive hunting dog and, eager to see how he would perform, he took off tracking a bear. No sooner had they arrived in the woods than the dog picked up the trail, but then the dog stopped, sniffed the ground, and headed in a new direction. He had caught the scent of a deer that had crossed the bear’s path. A few minutes later he halted again, this time smelling a rabbit. Every couple minutes the dog would stop and follow a different trail. Finally the breathless hunter caught up with his dog, only to find him barking triumphantly down the hole of a field mouse. Sometimes we’re a lot like this dog. We start out with high resolve, keeping Christ first in our lives. We know the answer to the first question posed by the Westminster Confession: “What is the chief end of man?” - “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever" - but our attention is often diverted to things of lesser importance. Most of us are more empty than we care to admit. We know in our hearts that we can only find satisfaction and security in God, but we usually look everywhere else first. When we find that we are wandering in the wilderness, we are often forced to admit that what the world offers doesn’t last, because it promises more than it can deliver.
When God is all we have, then He’s all we want. To say it another way, when we allow the Lord to totally possess us, we will be obsessed with Him. As we walk through the wilderness of our own wanderings, this psalm has guidance to get us back on track, so that our souls can be fully satisfied with God once again. Psalm 63 has been called, “The soul of the psalms” and was sung by the early church every day. Let’s look at it closely in order to find the love that is better than life itself. David began by taking a look on the inside, and recognized that the only thing he had left was God. “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1) Notice that David used a personal pronoun to describe his relationship and attachment, as he said, “My God.” He used two different words for God to show that Elohim (the general term for God) is his El, (the mighty and strong God). David sought God earnestly. He used a phrase that referred to the early dawn. It spoke of the idea of seeking God as the first thing we do. Proverbs 8:17 in the KJV captured it this way, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.” One way we can tell if we’re really longing for God is if we are turning our thoughts to Him as soon as we wake up. Psalm 5:3 states, “In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” David, though he was in a desert with no water, longed for God more than for a drink. David was dry and weary in his spirit. He wasn’t as close to God as he had been when he was a shepherd boy. As he focused inward he could tell that something was missing. He craved for intimacy with the Infinite as he reflected back to his prior worship experiences, as reflected in verse 2, “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” David, in this passage, was not longing for the temple building or even his fellow worshippers. He treasured the privilege he had to see the power and glory of God. That should be our aim in worship as well. We should come with the expectation of praising His power and gazing on His glory! The elements of the service should point us to God’s glory, which means, “weightiness,” allowing us to savor in His supremacy. David echoed the words of Moses from Exodus 33:18, “Now show me your glory.” We should be obsessed with nothing less. Verse 3 gives us the summary of David’s search for satisfaction, “Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.” David never got over the fact that God loved him with a covenant-keeping commitment and, as a result, he valued the favor and friendship of God above everything else. Life is not worth living unless it is lived in full recognition of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In the deepest sense, God’s love is life itself. Jesus put it this way in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Life is more than just eating and drinking. If we use Botox to get rid of wrinkles, or exercise so that we live a few years longer, we may improve our looks or lengthen our lives, but to what purpose or at what cost? If we don’t possess the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, then our obsessions are pointless and useless. Though we may improve our superficial selves, what does it really matter if we never experience the love of God? It is better not to exist at all, than to live without the loving kindness of God.
Because David knew the love of God personally, the last part of verse 3 says that he glorified God with his lips. He responded to God in praise and he gave testimony of God’s love to others. We who are recipients of God’s favor are constrained to share it with others.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-UDWk6e_aE
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