Psalm 63 “The
With-God Life”
We live in an age of spirituality.
If you Google the word “spirituality” on the web,
you are going to come up with all kinds of things.
There is New Age spirituality, Native American spirituality,
Wiccan spirituality, Tom’s Cruise’s spirituality.
There’s been a surge of interest in spirituality among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
About a year and a half ago,
Newsweek did a poll of 1000 Americans about their spiritual beliefs.
79 percent described themselves as spiritual.
84 percent said spirituality was either
very important or somewhat important in their daily lives.
64 percent say they pray every day.
Americans are seeking something deep and important.
We have even coined a name for a certain type of Christian - seekers -
there are seeker churches and seeker worship services.
We may think we’re on to something new with all this talk of seeking,
but seeking God has been around a very long time.
Augustine, a 5th century bishop and theologian,
understood this when he prayed:
“God, you made us for
yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Today’s psalm is a seeker’s prayer, a prayer of the restless heart,
an ancient prayer that is somehow still contemporary.
That’s because we humans were created in such a way
that there is a place in our hearts which only God can fill.
Until we make space for God, our lives will be driven by our restless hearts.
Today we need our Bibles with us. (In fact, we need them everyday.)
But if you don’t have one with you, pull one out from under the seats.
We’ve got lots here.
We’re going to be in the book of psalms.
The book of psalms has been called the prayer book of the Bible.
The Psalms were written to be read or sung in worship.
But the psalms are not just prayers of the past.
They are prayers for now. They belong to us, too.
If you read through the 150 psalms, they name every human emotion there is:
anger, betrayal, despair, love, longing, victory, celebration, praise, joy, waiting.
Turn to Psalm 63.
What I want you to notice first is the introductory statement at the top.
“A psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of
The fancy name for
this introduction is a superscription.
Many of the psalms have these, and they tell us part of someone’s story.
A psalm of David when
he was in the wilderness of
There is a story behind this one sentence. A real life, a real situation.
Now this is where a good study Bible comes in handy.
If you have one, your notes will send you back to the story of David in the wilderness when Saul was out to kill him and he was trying to save his neck.
It’s found in 1 Samuel 23.
Stories don’t get any better than the ones you find in the Bible.
David is running for his life.
Saul is the king, God’s anointed one, but it’s been awhile since he has listened to God. And he knows his days as king are numbered.
John Calvin, theologian from the 16th century, once said,
“The surest source of
destruction to men is to obey themselves.”
And in a nutshell, that was Saul’s problem – listening to himself instead of to God.
At this point, God has already told David that he will be the next in line as king.
But that doesn’t mean David’s life is trouble free.
If you read through 1 Sam 23, every time there is a decision to be made,
David “inquires of the Lord.”
Every action David took was accompanied by prayer.
And it wasn’t just one of these perfunctory
“Let’s-pray-before-we-begin-our-meeting,-good-
now-that’s-out-of-the-way,-let’s-get-down-to-business” kind of prayers.
David inquired of the Lord.
He prayed. He listened. And then he acted.
He combined a life of prayer
and action.
David lived what I think of as the “with-God life.”
David, King David, far-from-perfect David, if you know any of his stories,
still lived the “with-God life.”
A life where we’re keeping company with God.
That is the deepest purpose of our lives:
To know and to live in companionship with God.
Let’s go back to the superscription. It says:
A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of
In the wilderness, remembering God’s steadfast love which is better than life itself.
In the wilderness, praising God in the midst of trouble.
In the wilderness, trusting in who God is, even when we don’t know outcomes.
Living the with-God life, even in the wilderness.
This very old psalm has very modern applications.
Because we have all been in the wilderness at one time or another.
Or if we have not, we will be sometime in our lives.
Sometimes, it takes
going to the wilderness before seekers finally find God.
The wilderness places in our lives teach us about living the with-God life.
Because that sense of knowing that God is with us –
is the only way we can get through some of these wilderness places in our lives.
Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of meeting and then later in the week, talking by phone
with Gayle Caswick, member of this church. Former board chair.
She hasn’t been around much because her elderly parents
have moved up from FL to live.
Recently they were in assisted living, but her mother especially has declined,
so that they will be moving into her home, with home hospice care for her mother.
Gayle plans to take a leave of absence from work for a time to be with them.
As we talked, she told me some of her story, and many of you know it better than I do. Her husband died of cancer, 8 years ago, or so,
and so hospice care at home is something she knows about.
As we talked, she spoke of her faith.
She said, “You know, I haven’t really ever doubted. I know God’s here.”
Even in the wilderness places in life - losing a husband, caring for sick parents,
Gail has a sense that God is with her.
And she leans on that to reach out to others.
She works for a bank,
and although she had never thought before how that might matter to someone,
she finds herself being particularly able to help customers
who come in to close accounts and make other financial arrangements
after the death of a loved one.
She connects with these grieving customers,
because she knows something about what it feels like to lose a husband.
Her own life, which has included plenty of wilderness
has taught her something about the with-God life.
The psalm we read today was not just David’s psalm.
The superscription – which tells part of someone’s story -- could easily say
“A psalm of Gayle, sometimes alone in the wilderness,
but still a channel of God’s grace, to her customers, to her parents.
Living the with-God life, even in the wilderness.
And then there is Michael Zhu, pastor of the First Atlanta Chinese Christian Church, which worships here in the afternoon for the last 5 years or so.
A couple of weeks ago, Michael, Ted Leahy, our board chair, and I had lunch together.
Norcross Station Café. We talked of many things.
Living in
It was clear Michael took his faith very seriously.
I asked Michael if he’d been a Christian all his life.
No, he said, he was converted in
He was teaching English at a local community college, and noticed a young lady there. Thinking he might try to get to know her, he decided to drop in at her home for a visit. Well, the young lady wasn’t home, but her mother and grandmother,
fervent Christians who led a house church, talked with him about Jesus Christ.
It wasn’t too long before he converted,
and eventually ended up in the
He also eventually married the young lady, Linda,
whose passing we mourn this day.
The psalm we read today was not just David’s psalm.
It is Michael’s psalm too. The superscription could have been:
A psalm of Michael, grieving the shocking loss of his wife, Linda.
But called to follow Jesus Christ. Living the with-God life, even in the wilderness.
There are more stories to tell all around us.
Some you know, some you don’t.
Anyone you meet may be carrying a heavy, and often hidden burden.
Their stories are all stories of restless hearts.
Seeking hearts, hearts longing for the with-God life.
The superscription could be:
A psalm of 9 year old Emily who comes to church to hear about Jesus
and because she loves to be part of a church family.
Or a psalm of Randy, 45 years old, beautiful wife, 2 wonderful kids, two cars,
a house in the suburbs, who longs for deeper purpose.
A psalm of Jeanine, 42, married and divorced twice, never believing she was good enough, wondering if God can love her just as she is.
A psalm of Sam, age 67 and a widower, diagnosed with cancer, living far away from his grown children, seeking doctors and answers.
This psalm is your psalm.
What is the superscription for your life?
What is your story that keeps your heart restless?
What is the emptiness in your life that can only be filled by God?
What wilderness do you face?
When you seek after God, it doesn’t mean you will never be in the wilderness.
It just means God promises to be there with you.
God is waiting – always waiting – for you to say yes to the with-God life.