Proverbs 63:1

O God, you are my God, early will I seek thee. My soul thirsts for thee, my flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is... Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee... When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate upon you in the night watches, because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice... But the king shall rejoice in God, and everyone who swears by him shall glory. But the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. (Psalm 63)

Worship is not twenty minutes of singing—it is the whole of a life poured out for the glory of God, even from the wilderness.

David in the Wilderness

King David wrote Psalm 63 at a very interesting time in his life. He was king, but he was on the run because his son Absalom had turned against him, seeking to overthrow his father and take the kingdom. David had left Jerusalem and gone into the Judean wilderness, a place he knew intimately—he had spent many years there running from King Saul.

So there he was with some of his mighty men, guys who had been with him for years, who had been in battle with him, who had seen the best of David and the worst of David. Though he was a man after God's own heart, he was also a wretched sinner like us. And it was in that place, likely in a cave near the Dead Sea around En Gedi, that he penned these words.

Rethinking Worship

That is worship. But when we think of worship in our day, in an evangelical context, we picture someone leading in song, us singing, maybe standing or kneeling, arms lifted. That is the paradigm under which we live—and it is very short-sighted.

For the last several years I've been thinking much on the topic of worship, because the Bible reveals that man's chief end is to glorify God. God is passionate about His glory. Our whole existence is to be given as a doxology, to the glory of God. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, whether we eat or drink, we do it for the glory of God. Our entire life is to be worship.

Yet in the modern church we've reduced it to twenty or thirty minutes on a Sunday morning, or at best a group of men gathering on a weeknight after a long day. This becomes the limit of our paradigm, and we fail to recognize that worship is so much greater than this. Some of the purest worship in the Bible happens in dire straits, exactly like Psalm 63.

Created as Instruments of Worship

I saw some pretty intense worship last night. I was at our brother Ken's house for the Super Bowl, and Ken is a passionate Giants fan. That joy-exuding response is actually a form of worship—it ascribes value to what is seen and rejoices in it. I don't want to diminish it, because there's something to learn from how a sporting event can stir us emotionally to an overflow of emotion.

We can learn from how God created us, because He created us as instruments of worship. If His whole focus is His glory, then that shapes everything He does, including the way He made us. Throughout the day there are countless things that should stir us to worship Him, to exalt and lift Him—not just when musicians strum a guitar. That's part of it, but a very small part.

If you're anything like me, when you hear preachers talk about spending eternity worshiping God, and you've reduced worship to singing songs, you start to wonder, could we really do that forever? Your laughter tells me you've wondered the same. We won't simply sing songs for eternity, but we are created for worship. And because of that, we'll worship almost anything—that's where idolatry comes from. Idolatry is misplaced worship.

So whatever we're doing, wherever we are, we can be engaged in worship that honors God, a sweet-smelling savor to Him, just like a sacrifice offered at the temple. The worship that rises when we're gathered singing should also rise from our hearts and lives all the time. Consider this: how is my life worshiping God? How is it directing attention to His glory, magnifying and esteeming Him? Everything we do can and should be engaged for that purpose, because this is what we'll spend eternity doing.

The Weight of the Heading

I highly recommend you study and read the Psalms—not to pick apart every Hebrew word, but to think long and hard on what stirred their writing. Often they begin with a heading, like Psalm 63: a Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Those few words give us an incredible amount of information.

David is not in Jerusalem, the city of God. He's not in his comfortable palace, not at the beautiful temple offering a sacrifice. He's in a cave he knew well from twenty years of hiding. His son has turned on him, his kingdom has been taken, and he knows it is the result of his own sin. His house and family had fallen apart because of his own actions—adultery, a murder he plotted, a lie he maintained for an entire year.

You know the story. Nathan the prophet came to him with the story of a rich man who stole his poor neighbor's one beloved lamb to feed his guests. David declared the man must die—and Nathan said, "You are the man." That took incredible wisdom from God, because you don't tell the king he's a murdering adulterer unless you want to lose your own head. Nathan brought it up in a way that was simply miraculous.

Forgiveness and Consequence

David knew he deserved justice, and God, who is merciful, expressed His mercy to him. David wrote Psalm 51, one of the most beautiful psalms of repentance. But God also told him there are consequences to sin. Even when there's forgiveness, there's always consequence.

One son raped a half-sister; Absalom, when David failed to handle it, killed that brother and fled. Eventually Absalom returned, developed a scheme with some of David's own wronged advisors, and turned on his father, running him out of the kingdom. That is the context of this whole situation. And from the wilderness David writes, O God, You are my God—even though I'm a complete and utter wretch, You are still my God. That is phenomenal, and it should inspire worship.

Early Will I Seek Thee

One form of worship is thanksgiving and gratitude. When you contemplate who you really are and what you deserve—when it's just you and your conscience in the car or alone at home, where you know what no one else knows—and you realize God would still be your God, that is awesome. That kind of possessing Him, You are my God, stirs the desire: early will I seek Thee.

We naturally think of early in the morning. I'm not much of a morning person—the flesh wakes up first, and with me it's amplified. But there is truth that early we ought to seek God, and that discipline grows out of recognizing who we are and that God is ours.

There's another aspect too: early as in quickly, immediately, in any circumstance. Have you ever wrestled with a trial for hours or days, and then your wife or a friend asks, "Have you prayed about it?" and you realize you hadn't thought of that? My wife regularly schools me on what it means to be a Christian—not by what she says, but by her life. Early will I seek You—quickly.

A Thirst for God

My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You. This is the whole of his being—body, soul, and longing all directed at God. In what way? In a dry and thirsty land where no water is. The appetite of thirst is a powerful thing; you can't survive long without quenching it. That's the desire David has for God: not merely "I want to be near You," but "I need Your presence."

To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary. He's far from the temple, yet he longs to see God's power and glory in this very situation. Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life. You only truly know the lovingkindness of God—the Hebrew chesed, His mercy, the steadfast love Jeremiah speaks of in Lamentations 3 whose mercies are new every morning—when you recognize how complete a wretch you are. You only know the mercy of God when you've been a total fool.

Forms of Worship

My lips shall praise You—that's verbal worship, what we do on a Sunday morning. I will lift up my hands in Thy name—another form, a sign of surrender, of longing and need, a recognition that He is positionally higher than we are.

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness. In Isaiah 55, God calls the people of Israel, who still did religious things but whose hearts were not engaged: "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come ye to the waters... Wherefore do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfies not?" He's not speaking of physical food, but of what God gives. They were consumed with getting what they could from this world, but it never satisfied at the soul level. Worship is the recognition that God is the only source that satisfies, and coming to Him for it.

My mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. It's good that God doesn't ask for a joyful four-part harmony—this group wouldn't manage it. He asks for a joyful noise. Why joyful? Because we recognize who we are and who God is, and yet He still accepts us and desires to be our God. Nobody else in this world, if they really knew us, would want anything to do with us—even our wives. That stirs joy.

The Lost Art of Stillness

When I remember You upon my bed and meditate upon You in the night watches. This tells us about David's character. He spent much of his life alone in the wilderness, still and quiet—something lost in our culture.

A few years ago I went to Borrego with Josh and Rick Kirstead. We hiked three or four hours up a canyon to a little oasis, found shade under the rocks, and it took a good hour and a half for my ears to stop ringing with the noise we're constantly accustomed to. There's something uncomfortable about being alone and quiet, your cell phone dead, all the bars gone—you feel disconnected. We have such a hard time being still even for ten minutes. I challenge you: read a psalm in the morning, then be quiet for ten minutes. You'll start twitching at two and a half minutes, because we don't know how to be still.

Yet stillness is vital to worship. "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted." That stillness is itself worship—I sacrifice my time to be still as unto the Lord, a sweet-smelling savor to God.

Hiding His Word in Your Heart

It's hard to meditate on God if you haven't hidden His word in your heart. Even if it's just a verse or two—if you say you're no good at memorizing, take a whole month, or a year, to memorize Psalm 1, and then think on it. A good percentage of the time I spend driving alone is spent reciting Scripture I've put to memory, like Psalm 63.

My secret is simple: I take my voice recorder and Bible, push record, read the psalm, and then listen to it about four hundred times until it's in my heart. So instead of listening to talk radio—which will only make you mad, insane, or convinced the world ends tomorrow—I meditate on God's word.

I think on passages like Psalm 67: "God, be merciful unto me and bless me, cause Your face to shine upon me, that Your way may be known in all the earth." That sounds arrogant—if someone prayed that in a prayer meeting, the elders might pull them aside. But the next line shows it isn't selfish: I'm praying for blessing so that people would see Your glory and want Your governorship over their lives.

Rejoicing in the Shadow of His Wings

When David is sleepless or about to sleep, he remembers the Lord and meditates on Him—a form of worship. As we age, sleep often grows harder because our minds are weighed down by work, family, retirement accounts that aren't there anymore. Instead of carrying that anxiety, we can release it to the Lord. Setting your mind and affection on Him while you think on His word is worship.

Did David have sleepless nights in the wilderness? Surely. And what did he do? He meditated on the Lord. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice. My joy is in You, God—not in my job, my retirement, or any earthly thing. My soul follows hard after You, and Your right hand upholds me. When I seek You, You hold me up.

Those who seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts of the earth—a reference to Sheol. But the king shall rejoice in God. David reminds himself: my hope and joy are found in You, not in my mighty men, my army, my position, or my wealth.

Worshiping a God Who Seems Inactive

The mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. There is a lot of sick injustice in this world—injustice that should anger you. It makes God angry too. Yesterday a man being investigated in his wife's disappearance, who had supervised visits with his children, locked his two young kids in the house and blew it up. It's a sick world.

In October, a two-year-old girl named Yuyu wandered into the street in Beijing. A car ran over her; she lay there for eighteen minutes, was run over twice more, and was passed by more than a dozen people who looked and kept walking. She died in the hospital two weeks later. That should anger us.

How do you worship a God who seems inactive when that happens? The only way is to know that He is just, and there will be justice. He is slow to anger, but He is just, and justice will come.

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

Every aspect of our lives is to be worship. We should seek how to worship in whatever circumstance we face, not merely waiting for the Sunday morning worship time. That gathering is the culmination—when we, as one body with one voice, declare the praises of our God. But it's only the result of a heart of worship already kindled Monday through Saturday.

Jesus told the woman at the well, "The hour is coming and now is, when those who worship God will worship Him in spirit and in truth; the Father is seeking such to worship Him." It's not about the place, the format, the guitar or piano, the choruses or hymns—that's just a small part. When you're stuck in traffic, getting ready to sleep, rising early, or doing the job you hate, you can do it as unto the Lord in worship, because whatever you do in word or deed is to be worship.

I'm not saying it's easy. By the grace of God and the power of His Spirit, we should strive for it. When we live that way, we will look forward to these gatherings; we'll be the loudest people singing, even off key, even if it's just a joyful noise. It all makes sense when you're living in a state of worship. That's been my request to God for a while: Lord, help me to live in a worshipful way. It's hard—I might hit the mark twice a week. God, You created me for Your glory. Am I being used for it? Am I an instrument of worship all the time?

Closing Prayer

Lord, You're passionate about Your glory, and You want us to be passionate about it too. Help us to learn what it means to worship You in spirit and in truth, wherever we are, whatever we're doing. And Lord, that when given the opportunity, we'll sing with unbridled lips, unconcerned about the person in front of us or beside us, what they might think.

Just like David, who danced before You while his own wife thought, what a fool, and he didn't care—he went so far as to say, if you think that's bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Lord, help us to live with that kind of abandon that doesn't care what others think, consumed only with Your glory. Work this into our lives, Lord, because You created us for worship. Lord, help us to worship You. Amen.