“O God, You are my God”
[Psalms 63]
At this morning prayer meeting, I meditated on Proverbs 12:3 – “A man will not be established by wickedness, But the root of the righteous will not be moved.” As I meditated on the solid root of the immovable righteous, I thought about how to have such deep-rooted faith. I think Proverbs 12:1 gives the answer: “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, ….” The solid, deep-rooted faith of the immovable righteous man is based on a knowledge of God. But, as Pastor Lloyd Jones says in his book, "The Christian Warfare," one of Satan's works is to keep us from growing up in the knowledge of God. Eventually, like the prophecy of Amos, now there is a famine for hearing the words of the Lord (Am. 8:11). Therefore, I think that the people of God are perishing because they don’t have knowledge of God according to the prophecy of Hosea (Hos. 4:6). We must grow in the knowledge of God. As Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:13, we must all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Chris. Then we will be strong. A wise man is strong, and a man of knowledgeable increases power (Prov. 24:5).
In Psalms 63:1, the psalmist David experiences God's presence in the wilderness of Judah, so he confesses to know God more deeply and broadly in the wilderness of Judea rather than in the royal palace: “O God, You are my God …” (Ps. 63:1). As we meditate on the David's poem, confessing that God is God, I would like to receive lessons by thinking about the heart of believers who make such a confession.
First, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, earnestly sought God.
Look at Psalms 63:1 – “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.” The wilderness is, as David said, "a dry land and weary land where there is no water." As David flees from Absalom, he seeks God as if he was thirst for water in the wilderness. In other words, he had desire to seek God. However, the question arises, "Did David really desire to seek God even when he was in the royal palace?" In his book "Leap Over a Wall" Pastor Eugene Peterson said David's most inexcusable and most costly sin of his life was the sin of not truly forgiving his son Absalom. Then he said of this David's sin in the royal palace: “Adultery with Bathsheba was an extramarital affair committed by not overcoming a momentary lust, and the sin committed as king to cover it up killed Uriah. But rejection of Absalom was sin of persistently determined refusal to impart to his son what he had so abundantly received from God’ (Peterson). Pastor Peterson speculated that even after David brought Absalom to the royal palace, David's interest in God would have declined and his prayer life would have decreased while he treated Absalom with heartlessness. In other words, the more he distanced himself from Absalom without truly forgiving him, the farther he was from God. So, of course, David couldn't have prayed earnestly to God. I think this is what we are. I think we are no different from David. In God-given abundance, we don’t earnestly pray to God. But when we are in “a dry and weary land” where there is nothing around us because God disciplines us for our sins in our abundance and leads us into the wilderness. This is certainly God's grace and blessing. It is God's grace and blessing that God leads us into the wilderness. Look at Hosea 2:14 – “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Bring her into the wilderness And speak kindly to her.” In the days of Hosea, the Israelites lived a syncretistic life of faith while serving God and Baal together. But the wonderful grace and blessing is that in the wilderness, God spoke kindly to Israel.
God is the God who takes us into the wilderness through loving discipline because we keep away from God in abundance. What is God's true heart? There, in the wilderness, God wants us to restore our desire to seek God. How was David's earnestness restored in the wilderness? In the dry and weary wilderness where there is no water, David didn’t have longing for a woman like Bathsheba. In other words, David once longed for the lust of his flesh, the lust of his eyes, and the boastful pride of life (1 Jn. 2:16) in the royal palace. But now in the wilderness, his soul and body have longed for only the Lord. Therefore, David could confess, “O God, You are my God” (Ps. 63:1).
Second, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, remembered God on his bed.
Look at Psalms 63:6 – “When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.” The first hour of the day is good time to meditate on the Lord and His word in the morning, and it is good time to meditate on the Lord even at the end of the day, at night. We need time to sit alone in quiet times and meditate on the Lord, looking back and reflecting on what He has done in our lives today. In the midst of that, I think it will be of great benefit to our faith growth if we take the habit of thinking about who the God we met today and meditating on the God spoken in the Bible with faith. This is what Dr. Yoon-sun Parr said: ‘When a person is in the ‘bed’, his mind is once removed from all external affairs. I think that is a good opportunity to have godly heart’ (Park).
What does it mean that David said that his soul remembered the Lord in the middle of the night in the wilderness of Judea? That means that David recalled the fact that the Lord helped him in the past. So he said, “For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy” (v. 7). David knew that God had not only helped in the past, but was able to escape into the wilderness through God's grace even in the situation currently pursued by Absalom. So while mediating on God’s help in the middle of the night, David praised God in the shadow of His wings, the Lord who had been his help.
The Lord is “my help”. The Lord protects us by guiding us into the shadow of His wings when we are in danger. We must meditate on this Lord. Especially, like David, we should take the time to think of the Lord in bed at night. And we should remember the Lord's help. We must reflect on the Lord's saving grace
Third, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, was satisfied.
Look at Psalms 63:5 – “My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, ….” Obviously, David fled from Absalom and was in the wilderness of Judah, so he couldn’t have eaten marrow and fatness as he did in the royal palace. In other words, David would not have been physically satisfied in the waterless and dry wilderness of Judah. But he was satisfied spiritually in the wilderness. How was he able to be spiritually satisfied, like eating marrow and fatness in the wilderness? The reason is that David experienced God's lovingkindness in the wilderness. He experienced that the Lord's lovekindness was better than life, so that his soul was able to be satisfied through the eternal love of God (v. 3).
Are your souls satisfied now? You maybe satisfied physically, like David, as you live in your royal palace and as you eat something “marrow and fatness”. But aren't you spiritually hungry? David was betrayed by Absalom because of God's discipline after the sin of committing Bathsheba for his physical satisfaction at the royal palace and killing Uriah to cover it up. In the midst of God’s discipline, even though David was hungry and destitute physically in the wilderness of Judea, spiritually he made the wilderness a sanctuary, longing for the power and glory of God, and eventually was satisfied.
There is a gospel song called “There is None Like You”. The lyrics of the song are like this: “There is none like You/ No one else can touch my heart like You do/ And I can search for all eternity, Lord/ And find, there is none like You/ Your mercy flows like a river so wide/ And healing comes from Your hand/ Suffering children are safe in Your arms/ There is none like You.” In the end, we must seek the Lord earnestly, believing that only God will satisfy our longing souls, feeling solitude in the midst of the crowd. Then our souls can be satisfied.
Fourth, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, praised the Lord.
Look at Psalms 63:3 – “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.” Why did David praise God in the wilderness? The reason was because we experienced God's lovingkindess in the wilderness. In other words, David made this confession of faith because he experienced the presence of a loving God when he earnestly sought God in the Judean wilderness: ‘God is loving.’
If you look at Pastor Seong-Geon Hong's book ‘The Person God is Looking for’, there is a chapter entitled ‘The Power of Praising the Lord who Comes to us in Praise’. In that chapter he said this about the power of praise: ‘Where is the power of praise? It isn’t in the praise itself, but when the content of the praise is a confession of faith, God is giving power in that faith. Praise is a confession of faith. … When you ‘I will praise You’ it means that I choose and sing willingly. It mean that I choose to praise God even though my environment is so frustrating that I cannot sing’ (Hong). An example is Paul and Silas in Acts 16. Paul and Silas prayed to God in prison, determined to praise Him in faith. David, in Psalms 63, decided to praise God because God's eternal love is better than his life. He came to feel God's eternal love for him in the wilderness. He certainly would not have experienced God's eternal love like this while in the royal palace. Had he experienced God's eternal love in the royal palace, he would not have committed the sin of truly unforgiving his son Absalom who killed his another Son Amnon while keeping his distance from Absalom even through he brought him back to the palace. Eventually, David was thrown out of the royal palace and was fleeing from Absalom, and he experienced God's love in the wilderness of Judea, where God protected him in the shadow of His wings from the Absalom’s people who wanted to kill him (v. 7). David deeply experienced gracious hands of the Lord who helped David in the wilderness in his time of need more than in the royal palace. Because David realized that God was more eager for him than he was eager for God in the wilderness, he was compelled to praise God because of His wonderful love
Fifth, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, clung to the Lord.
Look at Psalms 63:8 – “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.” What does it mean to cling to the Lord? If we look at Deuteronomy 4:4, we can see the answer: “But you who held fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you.” In other words, to cling to the Lord means to held fast to the Lord and not leave. This refers to David's unfailing commitment to his Lord. In a word, David made recommitment to the Lord in the Judean wilderness. When he was in the royal palace, he left the Lord for a while and sinned against God. But when David was driven out of the royal palace and were in the wilderness, he didn’t leave God and followed the Lord closely. David, who was not held fast to the Lord in the royal palace, didn’t leave the Lord in the wilderness but held fast to Him. In other words, he made an unchanging commitment to God in the wilderness than in the royal palace. Isn’t it interesting to see that David’s devotion to the Lord changed in the royal place but in the wilderness it was unchanging commitment to Him? David experienced that the Lord's right hand was holding him in the wilderness. He made the wilderness “the sanctuary” to see the Lord's power and glory (Ps. 63:2). So God answered his prayer and held David fast with His powerful right hand. That was why David clung to the Lord and didn’t leave Him.
We must cling to the Lord. When we do so, the Lord will hold us fast with His powerful right hand. In other words, we will experience the power of God in our weakest and most difficult times in the wilderness. Not only that God will hold us fast with His powerful right hand, God will destroy those who seek David's soul to destroy him.
Sixth and last, the soul of David, who confessed “O God, You are my God”, rejoice in God.
Look at Psalms 63:11 – “But the king will rejoice in God; Everyone who swears by Him will glory, For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.” David experienced joy in the wilderness. The joy was something completely different from the worldly pleasures that he enjoyed for a while in the royal palace. The joy he experienced in the wilderness was joy that the world could not understand or give. He rejoiced because he experienced the eternal love of the Lord in the wilderness. David rejoiced because he experienced the satisfaction of his soul in the wilderness. David, who had been helped by the Lord and held fast by the right hand of the Lord's power, couldn’t help but rejoice in the Lord.
Enjoying God is not necessarily based on circumstances. Look at David. He rejoiced in God in the wilderness, not in the royal palace. David rejoiced because of the Lord only. He was glad and rejoiced with the Lord alone. Therefore, like David, we must be glad and rejoice with the Lord alone.
This Monday evening I unexpectedly got a call from a brother in my church English ministry community. While sharing the grace received during last Sunday's English service, he wanted to meet me because he wanted to share with me about the “revelation” that the Lord gave to him. So we met the next Tuesday and had conversation as we had lunch together. His conviction was that the Lord wanted him to serve the church. So he asked me how to serve the church, even in the smallest matters. So I advised him to give God a regular worship service every Sunday. The reason I told him that was because I believed that doing (serving) must come out from being. That was I advised to become a true worshiper whom God seeks. The brother who heard my advise seemed to agree with me. While having a meal and having heart-to-heart conversation with that brother in the Lord, I was grateful and happy to see the brother's firm faith, that is, faith in the existence of God.
Prophet Hosea exhorts us like this: “So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD …” (Hos. 6:3). I hope and pray that we may be able to confess, “O God, You are my God” (Ps. 63:1) as we press on to know Him. I hope and pray that as we live in this wilderness-like world, we may be able to experience the work of God that satisfies our souls even in the midst of adversity, hardship, persecution, and suffering like David as our souls long for God and remember Him in the middle of the night. Let us praise our God under the shadow of His wings as we experience God's eternal love, His power and glory. And let's recommit ourselves before God. Then, like David, we will be able to enjoy God alone.
“O God, You are my God”,
James Kim
[“I never want anything in my life/ to take your place/ I never want to live by any other grace/ My longing and my heart's desire is to see your face/ O Lord and become a friend of God/ I love you day and night/ I love you all of life, I love you Lord heart and soul/ I long to be a friend of God” (Gospel song “Heart and Soul”)]