September 23, 2005
SOUL THIRST
Psalm 63
Have you ever been really, really thirsty? I remember an experience I had in high school while living in Kenya. A friend and I had hitch-hiked from Kijabe to Nakuru to visit another friend during a school vacation. While hitch hiking home, we were driving through the Rift Valley, and decided on the spur of the moment that we wanted to hike up to the top of Mt. Longonot, an extinct volcano that lay several miles off the road. So we asked the car we were in to stop and let us off, and we set off for the top of the mountain. Because we hadn’t planned on making the climb, we hadn’t brought any water with us. It was a fairly easy climb up to the rim of the volcano and only took us about 40 minutes. Once there, though, we decided to hike the trail that goes around the rim. This took considerably longer. By now we were getting thirsty. But there is absolutely no water on the entire trail. Since we were already part way around, though, we decided to keep going. The hike took a couple more hours. Now we were seriously thirsty! My tongue felt twice its normal size, my saliva felt sticky, I could hardly swallow. When we completed the circuit, we still had to make our way back down from the rim, and then we faced about an 8 mile hike back across the valley floor and then part way up the escarpment to home. Part of the way home, we were really dragging. We happened to cross the railroad, and in the distance we saw a little used station building. We made our way there. No one was around, but the door was open, and there in the corner of the room was a water dispenser, with a glass sitting beside it. I have never been so glad to see water in my life! We took turns with the glass and drank cup after cup of the wonderful stuff, and could literally feel our strength returning as the water poured down our throats.
The analogy of thirst is a common one in the Scriptures. It signifies the deepest of human longings and the desperate drive to have those longings fulfilled.
Psalm 63 begins with a one such powerful statement of longing: (verse 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 this verse, David uses the image of thirst in a land of drought to describe his longing, his ache for God and for his presence. Now, you might say to me, what does this have to do with a spiritual survival kit for life in Abu Dhabi?
Well, it has been my experience in watching and interacting with a great number of people during my years here, that life in Abu Dhabi often has a way of exposing our soul’s longings, our thirsts, our hungers.
Why is that? I believe that all human beings have this thirst, this deep longing for God. But we oftentimes don’t recognize it for what it is. What is more, frequently in our everyday lives, in our normal situations, in our comfort zone, we find substitutes to fill those longings. Actually, the hunger, the thirst is not really gone, it’s not really satisfied. But it is somehow anesthetized, dulled, reduced to a level we can endure. We can live with it. We can suppress it.
Then we come to Abu Dhabi, and we find that many of those substitutes are missing; friends, family, job fulfillment, respect of colleagues, even roles you filled in your community or your church. Suddenly many of these things are not there, or they’ve changed. Our support system, many of our roles are gone. And we are faced with an awful emptiness, a great ache inside that we don’t know how to fill.
That great void you feel can well be the greatest crisis you face during your time in Abu Dhabi. It may also be your greatest opportunity for your time in Abu Dhabi to be one of the most significant periods of your entire life. Because it is an opportunity to learn one of the most profound lessons we can ever learn. It is a fundamental proposition that affects all of life. Here it is: Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the soul. Only God can quench your soul thirst.
This was the great truth that David had learned, and that he applies in his present crisis. We know that he is applying it, because along with this statement of longing, David also includes some statements of action. Because it is not enough to feel a longing for God. Our longing must also be translated into action. Let’s look at some of those statements.
This is a picture of strong intention and great seriousness and commitment. NIV translates “earnestly”, KJV says “early”. The root word means the dawn. So it carries the idea of that which is done first, or early because it is most important. It takes precedence over anything else. Do you seek God earnestly?
On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night… (v. 6)
In the ancient world, the night was divided into 3 watches of 4 hours each. David has been awake through the watches, (all of them, so all night). Where has he directed his thoughts?
“I think of you…” This could be better translated: “I meditate on you.” This is the same word as that found in Psalm 1:2: But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night.
My soul clings to you… (v. 8)
The word “clings” doesn’t quite catch the force of the concept here. The original word has the idea of movement in it. It’s not the idea of clinging to something static and passive like a child with a teddy bear. It is the idea of clinging or staying close by following. I like the KJV translation here: “follows hard after you.”
When I was a child growing up on a remote mission station in Tanzania, there was one particular year when my two older brothers were away at boarding school. I was too young to go. During that year I became my father’s shadow. If he was working in his carpentry shop under the trees, I was there pounding with my own hammer. If he took the truck to get a load of sand, I went along. If he was working on buildings at the local school, I wanted to be at the school. I followed hard after him.
So, deep longing is not enough. We must match our longing with actions: seeking, remembering, meditating, following hard after him. These actions are only the logical response to the fundamental truth: Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the soul. Only God can quench your soul thirst.
Woven into this psalm, along with the statements of longing and of action, are also some powerful statements of fulfillment.
That is an absolutely incredible statement. “Your loyal love is so good, so sweet, so full of reward and satisfaction and fulfillment that it is better than life itself. I would give my very life in exchange for your love if called upon to do so.”
I wonder how many of us can make that statement in any but the most theoretical of ways? And yet if you read the writings of some of the great saints, you will find that same deep satisfaction in the love of God.
My soul will be satisfied with the richest of foods… (v. 5)
What David literally says here is: “with marrow and fat, my soul is satisfied.” This was obviously written in the days before cholesterol tests and low fat diets. It was a time when meat was a treat and not a daily part of the diet, when fat and marrow were the most treasured part of the meal. To eat from the very best of the animal, and to eat until you can eat no more. Have you ever felt that way spiritually?
You are my help… (v. 7)
He relates to seeking God in our need, in our time of crisis, and finding that he is there to not only satisfy but to help.
When all our other support is gone, when we have nowhere else to turn, God is the one who will not fail us. He will satisfy our deepest longings. His right hand will uphold us.
What wonderful statements of fulfillment and satisfaction. Truly, only God can satisfy the deepest longing of the soul. Only he can quench our soul thirst.
But you have to seek him, remember him, meditate on him, and follow close after him. You will find that he will satisfy your deepest longings.
I want to read you a letter I received by e-mail a little over a month ago. It was written by a young woman who came to this church. I probably shook her hand as she came past after church, but I must confess I never had a name to go with a face. But she wrote to me and she has given me permission to share this with you.
I attended ECC while I was in the UAE for 7 months. I was there since February and now I am back home in the Philippines.
Before I (came to) Abu Dhabi last February, I was really challenged financially, personally and spiritually. I was born and raised (in a religious home), and for me God’s existence was never a question. It is just that there are things one can not readily answer when it comes to faith; questions like why God is letting these hardships happen; why he permits pain and suffering. I asked all these questions to myself often.
And so I told myself God must have a reason for me that I was able to go abroad and maybe he is giving me the chance to work in a foreign country and to answer my financial needs. I thought then that it was an answered prayer.
While I was there, challenges continued to happen. For 7 months I was jobless. All those times when I was alone in my room I cried, and really for the first time in my life had these deep conversations with God. Sleepless nights and restless days were my definition of living in Abu Dhabi back then. But it was also during those times that I first opened and read the Bible. It was when I learned all the ways of God and his promises. Again I cried, for I realized I knew him differently. It was the start of a deep friendship with him.
I decided to go back home and told myself I will purse a Master’s Degree before going back abroad. And so last July I flew back home. After 2 weeks, I got a call from a local company and they were hiring me as one of the bosses!! I gladly took the job and I know it is God working.
Pastor, thanks for opening my mind and broadening my point of view about life, faith and relationships. Now as I look back, I realized that he really answers prayers, and even though not always in the way we expect him to do, it is always better. I know the reason he let me go there was to know him deeply and to know his ways…
You may have come to Abu Dhabi with one agenda in mind. But maybe, like this woman relates, God has brought you here for another reason. Maybe he has brought you here to expose the deep longings of your soul; to show you the emptiness that is really there. Don’t recoil from that! The only reason God has for revealing your emptiness is because he desires to fill it! Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the soul. Only he can quench your soul thirst. And he will, if you will only seek him.
Before we leave this psalm, though, and conclude this series, I just want to highlight one other kind of statement that occurs throughout the psalm. We have looked at a statement of longing. We have looked at statements of action, and we have seen statements of fulfillment and satisfaction. These together in their turn, lead to statements of praise.
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. (v.3)
I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. (v. 4)
With singing lips my mouth will praise you. (v.5)
I especially like the one in verse 7: Because you are my help, I will sing in the shadow of your wings.
That is a great word picture. It is the picture of a tiny, baby bird. This tiny bird has been threatened and frightened. In his fright, he has fled to the one safe place he knows, his mother. There now, in the shelter of his mother’s wings, safe from harm, he opens his little beak and sings and cheeps his heart out. It’s a wonderful picture of the believer who has turned to God in his time of need and has found, in God, all that he needs to satisfy his deepest longings. Out of the overflow of a full heart, he can only open his mouth in praise and worship.
This brings us back to the central proposition of this message: Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the soul.
If you are finding that life in Abu Dhabi is exposing the deep longings of your soul, and you are sensing your spiritual needs exposed as your normal support system is stripped away, I urge you to turn to God.
Maybe for you it is the first time. Up until now, for you, Christ has only been a name. Spiritual needs were far down on your list of concerns. Until you came here. It’s happened to others. They came to Abu Dhabi to pursue earthly riches. Instead they came face to face with their own deepest longings.
Do you remember the story of Jesus at the well, talking to the Samaritan woman? Jesus started a conversation by asking her for water. Then he said: You should ask me for living water: Everyone who drinks this water (from the well) will be thirsty again, 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.
Do you want that living water? You came here to make a living, but God wants to give you a life! Turn to Christ, and let him satisfy your soul thirst.
Or maybe you already have a relationship with Christ, but over the years, you’ve drifted away. Your life has become cluttered with other pursuits and other priorities. There is a powerful verse in Jeremiah 2:13. The prophet writes: My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Sadly, that can happen to any of us. Maybe God has brought you to Abu Dhabi, or he is allowing you to pass through a difficult period of testing, so that you can recognize what’s happened and just how far you have drifted. Maybe this is God’s time and way of calling you back to the spring of living water. Remember, only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the soul.
Or maybe you haven’t drifted away, but you are still in a crisis, in pain, feeling very afraid, very vulnerable. Maybe you simply need to be reassured and reminded once again: God can and will satisfy the deepest longings of your soul. Hang in there. Put your trust and confidence in him and seek him earnestly. His love is better than life. Your soul will be satisfied. His right hand will uphold you. And when he does, don’t forget to praise him and to sing in the shadow of his wings.