“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you.” Psalm 63:1 NIV
John Chrysostom (347-407) wrote “that it was decreed and ordained by the primitive [church] fathers, that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm.” He also observed that “the spirit and soul of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this Psalm” (cited by J.J. Stewart Perowne, The Book of Psalms, [Zondervan], p. 486). In fact, the ancient church had the practice of beginning the singing of the psalms at each Sunday service with Psalm 63, called “the morning hymn” (Commentary on the Old Testament, C.F. Keil & Franz Delitzsch, [Eerdmans], p. 212). Psalm 63 shows us the priority of this man of God under pressure. If you or I were under the kinds of pressure David faced at this point in his life, I doubt if we would be writing songs. If we did, the song would probably contain a lot of urgent requests: “Help, God! Get me out of here!” David did write a song like that (Psalm 3). But it is interesting that Psalm 63 contains no petition (Perowne, p. 487). David expresses longing for God’s presence, praise, joy, fellowship with God, confidence in God’s salvation. But there is not one word of asking for temporal or even spiritual blessings. Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], pp. 224-226) outlines it nicely as “God my desire” (1-4); “God my delight” (5-8) and “God my defence” (9-11). The psalm shows us that David’s priority was to seek the Lord. Seeking after God should be our most important priority. No matter what pressures come into our lives, we will be able to handle them if we maintain this one priority above all else: Earnestly seek after God!
PRAYER THOUGHT
Lord, we choose to maintain the priority of seeking after You!
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Seeking after You, Lord, should be our most important priority. No matter what pressures come into our lives, we will be able to handle them if we maintain this one priority above all else: Earnestly seek after You. AMEN
INTERNATIONAL BIBLE READING ASSOCIATION (IBRA)
Isaiah 49:8-18
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