What kind of response to the
news of Christ would be a proper response?
David says
the following in Psalm 63:
“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.”
This is a yearning from his depths.
There is in these lines—if
you’ll understand the sense of the words—a violence, a lust. With
an active, soul-deep desperation, David is crying out, “God, I’ve got to have You.” This sense
continues:
So I have looked upon
you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because
your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will
bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will
be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with
joyful lips. (vv. 2–5)
For David, God is not some
distant grandfather type or some idea to noodle around with intellectually.
God is all-consuming.
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. My soul clings to
you; your right hand upholds me. (vv. 6–8)
I am fearful that, in general,
modern evangelicalism has become uncomfortable
with this sense of all-consuming passion for God.
We love the feelings in a worship experience, but David
was not pursuing experiences—he was pursuing
God.
And so when David says in Psalm 42:1–2, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so
pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living
God,”
We turn it into something tacky,
by making it cute and putting it under a picture of a deer on a T-shirt or coffee mug.
But it’s not cute. David is in pain.
He’s crying, “Why can’t I get there? Why can’t I get more of You?”
He does it again in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I asked 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 gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”
Is this desperation
something that typifies your life today?
Like Moses crying out, “I want to see You, Lord! I want to see Your glory” (Exod. 33:18).
Can our singing, our preaching,
our prayers, our books, even our blogs and tweets
and Facebook updates be said to reflect upon the fact that we are yearning for God?