Have a theological question?

Psalm 63 The brief geographical and political portrayals in this psalm of King David (together with Psalms 61 and 62) place them during the time when he was fleeing from Absalom, who had rebelled against him and successfully usurped his father’s throne (2 Sam 15-18).

Driven out of Jerusalem, David’s entourage was playing hide and seek through the dry and barren Judean wilderness with Absalom’s marauding army. Nevertheless, the desolate environment reminds David of his hunger for God, who had so faithfully met and satisfied his deepest needs (vv.1-5).

When his closest courtiers were worried about his survival, David’s meditative mood gave way to a passionate effusive praise and worship of God that is marked by a flow of tenses back and forth, from the past to the present and to the future, in the Psalm.

David’s focus and confidence in the faithfulness of his covenantal God (viz., my God; v.1) challenges our faith in the face of our dire circumstances in this present generation. Here, we face one of the ironies of human spirituality – a consistent relational appetite for God is indicative of closeness to Him.

David’s expression to ‘seek’ after God (v.1; to reach for something one desires) does not imply looking for Him who is not there but is always on the Biblical basis of looking for someone who is already present. Hence, his ‘soul is thirsting and body yearning’ for an attachment that has been absent due to worldly concerns.

Not unlike a child’s need for normal attachment or bonding to a parent or principal caregiver, the King’s historical bond with the Almighty drives him in his passion for God. The basis of spiritual hunger is our sense of fallibility and dependence in the absence of God (c.f., Rom 3:11).

Often, man’s ‘passion’ for God is intermixed with his own self-centered needs, which appears to be the source of his coming to Him. And this is not totally unforgivable, but expected as our love for God is unconsciously conditional in meeting our desires.

David moves us away from this perspective. He was not after what God could give him in his dilemma with Absalom, nor about the promises God made to him on the security of his inheritance and kingdom. His passion for God was purely centered in love for Yahweh Himself.

Loving God as God will never assuage our thirst for relating with Him, as our hunger to know Him will grow on us over time. What did David really see in the sanctuary? (v.2) Was it like a spiritually supernatural sense of God that Moses and Abraham experienced?

He did not elaborate. The ensuing references (vv.3-5), however, suggest that God’s tolerant graciousness in allowing man to draw near only because of a continuous stream of blood at the sanctuary’s forecourt would have been a reminder to David of the mercies available to him in this unusual relationship.

The King was not unfamiliar with sin and knew how it displeased God as it denigrates his conscience and degrades his desire for proximity with God. Fundamentally, our idolatrous substitutes for God subvert our passion for Him and diminish our spiritual sensing towards Him.

David then worships the Almighty. It is noteworthy that the focus was not on the exquisite experience (which would explain the reason for its lack of descriptive detail), but on the Person of God. David understood the repercussions of an exercised faith in God, as his soul clings to Him (v.8), with the glory and honour belonging always and only to Yahweh (vv. 3-8, 11).

About Coram Deo

Coram Deo — before the face of God. This blog reflects on Scripture, world events, science, music, psychology, and the human mind — always through the lens of Christian faith. All of life is lived before the face of God.