You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 63:1-8 (NIV)
I wrote last week about the importance of investing time in our relationship with the Lord, and this week I want to follow up with thoughts I gleaned from a teaching I ran across that spoke to the idea of intimacy with God.
There are numerous references in the Bible about our relationship with the Heavenly Father being like that of a bride to a bridegroom. Anybody can fall in love with their spouse, but not everybody gains true intimacy. I know how blessed I am to have that with Brenda, and I hunger for it with my Lord. Here are five points that David illustrated in the text from Psalm 63 about achieving intimacy with God.
Yearning for God. Remember how good it feels when we are parched with thirst to get that ice cold cup of water and feel it rolling down our throats? The water David wrote about in verse 1 is the same water that Jesus told the Samaritan woman about (John chapter 4). The water that we drink and never thirst again, can be had only by intimacy with the Lord. We need to come thirsty, then remember that thirst every day so we don't grow complacent and let our closeness with God slip away.
Awakened Spiritual Senses. Part of achieving intimacy in a spousal relationship is seeing, feeling, and holding your spouse close against you. We can't do that with the Lord, but as we move closer to Him we can sense Him, feel His presence, be aware of Him. David "sees" God in verse 2 and feels His power and glory more so as a result. That awareness helps us develop a stronger bond with the person of God. He moves beyond a concept and feels more like a person, one we can be close to in a spiritual way.
New Values and Priorities. In verses 3 and 4, David shows how God's love is better than anything in his life, and can't stop praising and glorifying Him. When we have those special moments of intimacy with our spouse, don't we move into a place that we can't stop telling them how wonderful we think they are? That same place can exist in our relationship with the Lord. The closer we are to Him, the more He reveals of Himself, and the more amazing we realize He is.
Satisfaction and Fulfillment. Saturday morning is usually the time when Brenda and I can leisurely move into our day and spend some quality quiet time together. Sometimes I hold her and feel that life just can't get any better than it is at that moment. As wonderful as that time is, there's a level of intimacy with God that David writes about in verses 5 and 6 that actually is better. As much as your spouse may love you, God loves you more--that's what He does. When we allow ourselves to bask in the glow of that love and let it just flow through us and over us--wow!
Trust and Dependence. A key part of intimacy is trust, which can take several different forms between people and all of them are important. David shows in verses 7-8 that he is not shy about clinging to the Lord and declaring His dependency on Him. Why? Because David trusted Him. I trust Brenda with my life, but I trust God more because, well, He's God and Brenda is a (very slightly) imperfect human. There are those who preach a message that God is just waiting to strike you down because of your sins, but the truth, the truth that Jesus taught and lived on Earth, is completely different. He won't turn on us when we make ourselves vulnerable. I pray that knowledge breaks down any barriers between you and intimacy with our Lord.
My life is hardly a perfect example of these points, but of course neither was David's. Neither is yours, I bet, but that's okay. Wherever you're at in your walk with the Lord, you can take steps to move closer to Him and develop a sense of intimacy that will bless your socks off and change your life. I encourage you to start today and prayerfully consider how you can do that. If you come to the Father and seek, He will show you how.
You can depend on Him.
Amen!! Beautiful!!
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