“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalm 61:1-2
The heading of Psalm 63 places it in ‘the wilderness of Judah’ — David likely wrote it while fleeing from his son Absalom’s coup (2 Samuel 15–18). He is politically deposed, physically displaced, and separated from the worship life of the temple. The desert setting is not metaphorical; it is literal. And David’s use of the desert as an image for his spiritual state is honest: he is dry. But the thirst is directed: ‘my whole being longs for you.’ Not for his throne back, not for his enemies’ defeat, not for comfort — for God. The Hebrew nephesh (whole being, soul) and basari (my flesh, my body) indicate that this longing is not merely intellectual. It is embodied, physical, total. David’s famous declaration in verse 3 follows: ‘Your love is better than life.’ A man in the desert says that even life itself is less valuable than the steadfast love of God.
My prayer is that my soul will long for God like David. What about you? Biblical prophecy reveals that we are fast approaching the time of Jesus return and persecution of Christians will intensify into great tribulation. God has warned us. We will need to be sold out for Jesus to resist the mark of the Beast. We will need to be like David and be able to say, ” “Because your steadfast love is better than life“.
The purpose of your identity is to ‘declare the praises’ of God. How is your life currently functioning as a witness to the one who called you out of darkness? I am presently on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands with my family at 1 Napili Way, Napili. Today, I attended Harvest Church and was presently surprised at the good attendance with a lot of young families and the worship was sincere. It was a real encouragement for me to see God at work in another country.



