As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
I thirst for God, the living God. Psalm 42:1, NLT.O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1, NLT.
David, the king of Israel for 40 years between 1001 BCE to 970 BCE, was, by far, the best king that Israel would have, even though he had a life full of moral failure. Samuel said that David was “a man after God’s own heart” when he was giving the news to Saul that David would be his replacement.
David was a war-mongering soldier, victorious wherever he went. But he had some spectacular failings in his reign. He got the wife of one of his best generals pregnant and then covered it up by having the general killed in war. Not exactly what you expect to find in “a man after God’s own heart,” is it?
But David had another side to his character – a side that was winsome and loved by God. That “loved by God” side of David is most excellently seen in the beautiful worship songs that David wrote during his life. Excepts from two of them began today’s meditation.
David exemplified what Jesus was talking about when he said, “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Among other things said, David said that he had a consuming desire to be near to God. Like a deer looks for water. Or like a person trapped in a desert, without water.
David was, on one hand, a flawed man. He committed awful acts of corruption and sin against God. And yet he was extraordinary in his honesty about his shortcomings and possessed a profound hunger and thirst for God. This is abundantly clear in his songs.
One wonders if Jesus was thinking about David as he congratulated people who possessed this kind of appetite. “O the blessedness of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Like David.
Prayer:
David, O God, was cut from the cloth of those who hunger for you and are nourished by the life you offer them. We pray that we, like David, will thirst for you like one in a desert, longing for water. In Jesus’ name. Amen.`