Saved and Satisfied

“O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (Psalm 63:1).

When David wrote this Psalm he was in the wilderness of Judah, which he calls, “a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” It was a place of no resources, utterly barren of the most fundamental necessities of life. Yet he was not crying out for food or water, and much less for any of the luxuries of life, but thirsting for God—His power, His glory, and His lovingkindness. David’s experiences, as related in the previous Psalm, had led him to say, “In God is my salvation and my glory” (Psalm 62:7), and this brought him to a point where God also became all his desire.

Are our desires at all equal to David’s? We, too, are in the wilderness, for that is what the world becomes to those who have been saved out of it by the cross of Christ. There is nothing in it to feed the soul or satisfy spiritual cravings. We, too, have known God in His sanctuary, not now in the Tabernacle, wherein David sought the Lord; nor in the gorgeous temple that Solomon built; but in that far more wonderful sanctuary to which our Lord referred when “He spake of the temple of His body” (John 2:21). We have seen God, revealed in Jesus, through His Word. Having begun to know Him thus, we thirst to know Him better.

Thirst such as this is bound to be fully met. Therefore we find David saying with confidence: “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness” (Psalm 63:5). This signifies satisfaction of a very full and abundant order. Though in a dry and thirsty land without water, David was in the enjoyment of marrow and fatness.

We, too, may be filled with satisfaction in the midst of an empty and dissatisfied world—this is the desire and purpose of God for us all. I am certain that if every Christian shared David’s passion for God, and was characterized by a deep and abiding satisfaction, the men of the world would be more deeply impressed by it than by all the gospel sermons that ever could be preached.

—F.B. Hole, from Scripture Truth