The days of guests on Spring Break, late night card games and playing with Libby are coming to an end along with the month of March. I love having guests visiting and housesitting for our friends and I like how at the end of all that there is something renewing about going back to our own home and it just being the two of us again. This week we will be moving back to our apartment and taking up our happy life there of more regular habits, longer nights sleep and this joy of renewal.

This morning I was reading Psalm 63, perhaps my favorite Psalm. And I am touched and challenged by the poetic phrases of praise and the depth of the writer’s commitment and longing:

“O God, You are my God; Early I will seek You;
My soul thirst for You; My flesh longs for You.
In a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips shall praise You.
Thus I will bless You while I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.

When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches.
Because You have been my help;
Therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
My soul follows close behind You;
Your right hand upholds me.”

Psalm 63:1-9

This Psalm speaks depths to the joy of fellowship with God. There is such belonging and dedication in his words. He speaks of seeking, thirsting, longing and looking for the Lord, to see Him and know His power and glory. He speaks of praise, blessing and satisfaction as what constitutes his life and what he will continue to do. The line that really sings of the writer’s surrender and dedication to the Lord is verse 3, “Your lovingkindness is better than life.” Wow. So often the Christian life is what people do, not life itself. I find my heart much more aligned with the Psalmist in this verse than the casual Sunday morning, Wednesday night routines of American Christianity today. God is life. God is better than life. The world has such a crooked view of life. We deny food and water to people who can’t care for themselves, abortion is accepted and the common message of society is to simply find your purpose. The Psalmist’s statement is quite contrary. He sees his life not as what he can do , but as what God has done and continues to do for him and in him. He doesn’t speak as one questioning God or wondering why he can’t get what he wants in life. He speaks as one who is surrendered, not divided, but wholeheartedly devoted to Him as his help, which he follows and rejoices in. He knows that it is in God’s hands where all of time and life exist. It is He who gives and takes away. He sees life in the shadow of God’s wings, satisfied and holding fast to Him. He views his purpose as following close behind the Lord, longing to see His glory.

Sometimes I fall in the trap of myself. I step out from under God’s wings and I look at Him through my desires the circumstances and the twisted world in which we live. And I begin to ask myself, what is God doing for me? Why isn’t He answering my prayers or bringing justice to pass? I am looking at Him through the lens of the world, circumstances and my own unchecked desires. Instead I should be looking at the world, my circumstances and have my desires checked through the lens of His Word and lovingkindness. Sometimes I look at life and I see lots of ways that it could be better. But other times, like today, I am looking to the Lord and seeing that He is better because He is life.

“O Father I can’t do without,
Your love that’s better than all of life to me,
For without You,
I’m nothing.”