Cling to God’s hand when you thirst for love

 


You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you. (Psalm 63:1)

Like most true poets, the psalmist who wrote Psalm 63 did not need many words to show that there are times in our lives that are harder to endure than others. The psalmist asks for reflection on the tough days and hours of life and testifies to the depths of our relationship with God. These periods of distress guide us to reach to God’s helpful hand and inspire us to embrace his love.

 

“I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1b)

It is in the desert where we truly learn what it means to be thirsty, so thirsty that we start to fear death would come to you soon.

 

All our sophistication and skills are of no use or value when we are stripped of the options to resolve our thirst by our own efforts.

 

This is when we start to earnestly call upon the moist breeze of having communion with God, to save us, to rescue us. It happens in God’s presence when we worship the Lord. It occurs during the hour of resuscitation when we lift our hands in praise and worship, knowing that we do this in fellowship with all God’s people, even when they are not in our physical presence.

 

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. (Psalm 63: 2 – 4)

 

After the Lord treated my parched lips of anxiety and my fear of loss within the dry lands of my despondency, by being upheld by the Lord’s hand, I will always remember his goodness!

I will even go to sleep with a fond memory of receiving God’s love during the moments of thirst for answers, and courage and a new vision of a satisfied life.

 

I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;

with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.

Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.

I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.  (Psalm 63: 4 – 8)

 

The worst lie that can be told, is to convince someone dying of thirst that water cannot save him.

This is absolute foolishness. It is evil deceit!

 

Why do we then fall for the lie from hell that tells us that being cynical about sharing with God and his people when we live through the rough patches, can help us. That cessation from the Lord’s holy presence can be a reasonable thing to do, when we experience painful thirst for love and for healing?

 

Why run away from God’s love, and from being healed by bringing glory to him, when we are dying inside? When the waters of praising him and the strength of his hand are the only resources we have that can help us?

 

Thirsty, sad human being who is destroyed by exhausting loneliness and despondency: Come back to the waters of worship.

Come to be saved from yourself and your woes, by praise!

 

Come into God’s holy presence to worship him and behold his power and glory in order to receive faith that rescues from woe and sadness. (verse 2).

Come, to cling to God’s right hand that upholds you. (verse 8)

Come, to drink from the waters of God where he saves his people from thirst!

 

Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.” 

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