ARE WE EARNESTLY SEEKING GOD?

Psalms 63:1-11 NIV A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. 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. (2) I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. (3) Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. (4) I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. (5) My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. (6) On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (7) Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. (8) My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

There are many today who claim that they are seeking God.  What does it really mean to seek God earnestly?  

Why was David was in the desert of Judah?  It wasn't  for a vacation, nor was he just passing through. 

Look how the psalm ends:

(9) They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.  (10) They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. (11) But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

There were people seeking his life.  He was running from them, which led him to the desert.  Imagine being pursued by people who wanted to kill him.  You can imagine the anxiety, the fear.  But in this time of fear and anxiety, what did David long for?  Was it to for God to take him away from the desert, to deliver him from his enemies?

Notice, in his psalm, what David longed for.  While in a desert, lacking water and food, fleeing from his enemies, what was it that David sought for.

(1)  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.

In a dry and weary land where there was no water, David wasn't thinking of water or food.  His soul earnestly sought for God, thirsted for God.  His body longed for God.  In a dry and weary land where there was no water he earnestly sought for the Lord to satisfy his soul.  He wasn’t crying out for water or food.  It was what his soul longed for that was of utmost priority to David.

In a difficult situation David longed for spiritual satisfaction.  It wasn’t the Lord bringing him out of the desert that he was longing for.  He was simply longing for God.

Was he seeking God to take him out of the desert, or to give him water and food while in the desert?

(2) I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. (3) Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. (4) I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.

David proclaimed "because YOUR LOVE IS BETTER THAN LIFE".  Really?  For David the love of God, being assured of His love, was better than life.  More important than what he was going through and experiencing was the knowledge and assurance of God's love.  That's what he was earnestly seeking for.

Think about this for a while, meditate upon it.  Can we say the same thing?  That knowing God’s love, His unfailing love, is better than life?  In other words, it doesn’t matter what I have or don’t have in this life, as long as I am assured of the love of God.

If we're honest enough, that's not how we think.  Sadly, we usually equate God’s love with what He gives, or what He does in our life.  When times are bad, we want God to show us His love by turning it into good.  In a sense we're saying "our life is better than Your Love".

 (5) My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. (6) On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (7) Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. (8) My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

With this assurance of God’s love, David proclaimed that his SOUL WILL BE SATISFIED AS WITH THE RICHEST OF FOODS.  It was his soul that was satisifed, not his body.  It didn't matter if this thirst and hunger weren't satisfied.  What was important was that his soul had it's fill - as with the richest of foods!  And that's where our praise comes from.

Many times the praise that come from our mouth is when God satisfies our stomachs with the richest of foods.  But for David it didn’t matter if he was hungry and lacking food.  What was more important was that his soul was satisfied, filled, as if he had just had a heavy meal.

When David was in the desert, it was his soul that needed satisfaction, assurance, not his body.

Have you noticed that when we are in our own “desert”, the first thing we seek is for God to take us out of the desert, or for him to meet our needs while in the desert – to satisfy the thirst of our bodies, the hunger of our stomachs.  We want our stomachs to be satisfied with the richest of foods.  What we experience or have in life seems to be more important than His love.

We don’t seek the satisfaction of our souls.  It seems to be the last priority.

This is why there are so many Christians who are discontent, frustrated and still longing for things in life – the first thing we want satisfied is our bodies, and not our soul.

But for a true believer, we know that true satisfaction, real satisfaction, is found in our soul.  And only God can satisfy the soul.  Not water or food, not money or material things, not fame or fortune.  Only God.

This is why God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins – to bring us back to the Only One who can really satisfy our souls.

What satisfaction does our soul need?  The mistake that many make with God is that we think He satisfies our soul with the life of this world, with material things or earthly satisfactions.  That’s why we look for answer to prayer, the “blessed” life, to satisfy us.

God first satisfies our soul, renews His love for us, by giving us eternal life. Sin separated us from God, and made us focus on our self, and the world.  This is the reason we don’t seek for God is because sin has separated us from God and has made us blind to who He is, and the spiritual satisfaction He gives.  And so we seek satisfaction in our bodies, in our self, our lives.

We are restored to eternal life, to His life, through Jesus Christ.  His death was a sacrifice offered for us, in our stead, so that we could be reconciled to God.

John 1:4 NIV In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

And when one is reconciled to God, and we are given the gift of eternal life, there is no earthly life, or earthly thing, that can satisfy our soul compared to this.

God places us in a “desert” situation to make us realize that the things of this world do not satisfy us.  Only God can refresh our soul, as with the richest of food.  We can have little, and still be blessed.  We can by hungry, and yet our souls are filled.

John 4:13-14 NIV Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, (14) but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

John 6:35 NIV Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.