Daily Readings: Psalm 63 and Psalm 84
Today you’re invited to memorise Psalm 84:8-10,
8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty;
listen to me, God of Jacob.
9 Look on our shield, O God;
look with favour on your anointed one.
10 Better is one day in your courts
than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
First try to commit it to memory, and then meditate on it (or even just part of it) throughout the day in light of Psalm 63:1,
1 You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
Without water a human being will die, so God designed us to experience the longing called “thirst” in order to move us to drink water when our bodies need it. We don’t need to check a water dial on our bodies, because we sense the need in an intense physical longing. In Psalm 63:1, David indicates that God has also designed us with an inherent longing for God!
When David wrote Psalm 63 he was in a physical wilderness and he must have been experiencing great physical thirst. Yet his longing for God was greater than his longing for water. Rather than writing about his physical thirst, he wrote that his “whole being longs” for God “in a dry and parched land where there is no water”. He saw the terrain around him and his physical thirst as symbolic of his spiritual longing for God. There was nothing He desired more than He desired God. Like the author of Psalm 84, David would have given anything to be in the House of God, worshiping and encountering the LORD he loved.
Personally, I find myself deeply challenged by the intensity of David’s longing, and I find myself praying: Lord, help me to see through the vanity of the worldly things that keep me distracted from my most precious treasure – You. Lord, awaken in me the same desire and longing for You that David had. Awaken my soul to discover that its deepest longings are for You! Amen.
Dave's Diary 
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