Meditation of the Day  

"I lift my hands to You in prayer.  I thirst for You as a parched land thirsts for rain.  Selah." (Psalm 143:6, NLT)

In this glorious psalm, David is found once again crying out to Yahweh for deliverance.  Appealing to Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness and righteousness, David offers up his prayer and cry for mercy in the midst of trouble and persecution.

Though very few of us in our comfortable North-American environment can relate to the persecution that David suffers, we need not despair that there is nothing that God’s precious Word has for us thousands of years later. 

When David looks around to his present circumstances, all that he sees are his enemies pursuing him, seeking to crush and kill him (v. 3).  Not surprisingly, his response is one of despair, one all of us can relate to: “So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed” (v. 4). 

But David has been here before.  The psalms are not only David’s journal entries of his pains and struggles; they are also the faithful record of David’s deliverances by His faithful King.  David’s life was filled with persecution.  But David’s life was also filled with salvation and deliverance.  The same God who allowed all of these circumstances into David’s life was the same God who delivered him out of them all. 

And so, by divine grace, David’s glance is turned from surveying his present circumstances to musing upon his past victories.  David moves from despair to hope as his gaze fixes upon his Warrior-King, the LORD of Hosts: “I recall the days of old; I meditate on all that You have done; I ponder the work of Your hands” (v. 5). 

How often we experience redemptive amnesia when our present troubles overwhelm us!  How often the Spirit is willing to look to God, and yet the flesh is weak, and surveys only the present troubles! 

But David says to himself, in the midst of his pain, “God is faithful.”  He has promised to be my strong tower, my refuge, my tower, my shepherd, my shield, my all in all.  But not only does he quickly recall them; he begins to ‘chew the cud.’  He takes a considerable amount of time to reflect upon and meditate and muse upon Yahweh’s trustworthiness.  

Reader, follow David’s example.  Satan wants us to fix our eyes on our troubles.  The Spirit would rather have us fix our eyes upon God’s faithfulness. 

And what is God’s greatest act of His covenantal faithfulness to His people?  The cross of Jesus Christ!  Oh reader, as we have already seen, if God did not spare His only Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not with Jesus graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)  The cross of Christ says that God cares about us.  Don’t let anything that comes into your life convince you otherwise.  Here in is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). 

But David is not content just reflecting upon the past mercies of God.  No, his meditation calls for action.  With his hope, trust, and confidence reawakened, he proceeds to lift up his hands in prayer and call out for his future deliverance (v. 6). 

In fact, as David reflects upon his God, his soul becomes thirsty for more of God’s mighty works to be evidenced.  He is not content to merely seek deliverance; he wants the Deliverer Himself!  He wants more of God: more of His love, more of His mercy, more of His grace, more of His justice, more of His sweet, abiding, comforting presence!  The best analogy David can think of is the parched land that wants only one thing: the sweet, refreshing, live-giving water that will satisfy its deepest longings. 

As I write this, I feel the conviction that my soul has not longed for Christ this way.  And so I ask that God would give us this thirsting for Him, that Christ the good Shepherd would lead me again to the streams of living water.  And along the way, I would realize that HE is the very streams my parched soul is longing for.  Oh that the Spirit would give me this kind of thirst.  Oh that my tongue would cleave to my mouth, and that I would run headlong into the spring of gushing water that is called “Christ.” 

 In the next verse, David confesses his spirit is beginning to fail him.  Oh that we would assess our spiritual state, and realize our spirits are failing, and thus call out for God’s “Spirit to lead me on level ground” (v. 10).  This level ground is Christ.  He is the epitome of God’s righteousness (v. 11) and God’s unfailing covenantal love (v. 12).  

May God breathe upon our church, as He did upon the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.  May He give us grace to reflect much upon His faithfulness, exhibited most clearly in Jesus Christ: His perfect and righteous life, His undeserving death, and His triumphant resurrection.  May we be like that parched land and long for more of Christ’s sweet waters of life to satisfy our deepest longings and desires, yea and even to make us forget the pains and persecutions that surround us.  Oh for a God-entranced vision in all things! 

Holy Spirit, only You can do this.  Lead us again to Christ.  Holy Spirit, may Christ’s water become in us again a spring of water welling up into true, eternal life.  Yahweh, deliver us, for Your name’s sake, Amen. 

In Christ,

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