So, is hiding out from this coronavirus getting you a little stir crazy? Well, although David didn’t know anything about viruses, corona or otherwise, he knew what it was like to be on the run from his enemies. After all, when he wrote Psalm 63, he was in the wilderness, the desert, trying to escape from King Saul, his own father-in-law. Not only his social calendar but his whole life was on hold, and he had no idea if or when he would ever be able to get back home to his wife.

Yes, as verse 2 says, David was in a dry and weary land where there is no water. As verse 9 says, he had enemies who were seeking to destroy his soul. He was tired and scared. And yet as verse 1 says, his deepest longing, his greatest thirst was for God. As verse 5 says, when he lifted his voice in prayer and his hands in praise, he felt just as satisfied, just as full as if he had eaten the most sumptuous of meals.

How could that be? How could David be so focused on God when it would have been so easy for him to give in to bitterness or self-pity? Well, while David was stuck in his desert hide-out, enduring the months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror that seem to characterize all wars past and present, he seems to have spent a lot of time in prayer. After all, verse 1 says that David sought God even in the earliest hours of the morning. In fact, the very existence of this Psalm proves that David not only poured out his heart in prayer to God, but also took the time to write some of those prayers down in ways that others could sing along.

And what did David pray? In verse 7, David said that God had been His help in the past. And in verse 3, he goes so far as to say that God’s faithful, covenant love is better than life itself. And so because of this confidence in God’s power and love, David was able to rejoice in the shadow of God’s wings, in spite of his boredom and fear in the present.

So today, why don’t we spend less time in worry and more time in prayer? No matter how spiritually dry we may feel, why don’t we seek God and His face? For like David, we can trust that the One Who has helped us so many times in the past, the One Who gave up His only Son to save us will help us even now, no matter what we may be going through.

Psalm 63 (ESV)

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

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.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
6 when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
9 But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth;
10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a portion for jackals.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.