Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

We all have things we do everyday. Hopefully brushing your teeth is on the list. I've slept every day of my life, except those few youth group lock-in nights as a teen, all-nighters as a college student, and a particularly grueling night I remember when my baby was 4 months old. We have lots of things we observe as the routines of our daily lives. And for the earliest Christians, the singing of Psalm 63 can be added to this list of daily habits.  

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The early church fathers record that scarcely a day went by when this psalm was not sung as a hymn by the early church. And I can see why - I hope you'll take time to read the whole thing today - it's raw and honest. Written by David while on the run in the wilderness, likely from King Saul who was trying to kill him, this psalm may have resonated with the early Christians who were also experiencing persecution, alienation from their Jewish culture, and the difficulties that resulted from being social pariahs. It's one thing to praise God when times are good, but when one's life is truly on the line, today's verse takes on a whole new meaning.  

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Can you declare that God's love is better than your actual life today with the same literal confidence that the early Christians must have uttered these words? I cannot. Maybe a diagnosis or circumstance in your life has made it so that, actually, you can agree that God's love is better than life. But I think that many of us cannot.  

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And yet, though most of us may not be in a circumstance where we're staring death in the face like David or the early Christians were, surely most of us have walked through the desert. Not a literal one, maybe, but a spiritual one. I remember well my own desert season. It was a time when life itself did not satisfy me as it once had. My heart was lonely and sustenance for my soul seemed scarce. And, I hate it, but sometimes the desert is what it takes to realize that the love of God is the only thing that can truly satisfy our hearts.  

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This is the cry of David in this psalm. All has been stripped from him, and he knows the Lord is the only thing he has left to hang his life on. David found a deeper life, even in the desert, because in the absence of the security of hearth and home, it became abundantly clear that his security, identity, and joy could only be found in the love of God.

But, man, how I wish it didn't take the desert to convince me of this truth! What if I could remain convinced to my very core that, even when I have abundance in my pantry and my bank account, it is the Lord who supplies my every need. Even when I find favor with my friends and harmony in my family, to know that God's love is the most important relationship in my life. Even when my roof is strong and my job secure, to trust that it is the Lord who keeps me safe in the shadow of his wings. Even when my health is strong, to hang my only hope for true, abundant life on forever life with Jesus. Why does it take the desert to remind my wayward heart that his love is truly better than the comforts of this life?

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I have no answer. Except that I'm so thankful for his mercy, even when the mercy looks like the discomfort of the desert. Because even as I wish my forgetful heart didn't require the clarity that the desert brings, I'm so thankful my God will lead me into wherever and walk with me through whatever it takes to remind me that his love is the only thing that leads to life.  

Jesus, I'm reminded as I ponder the desert that you were led by the Spirit into the desert for a time of testing, too. Jesus, even as I'm in the desert, strengthen me in YOU. Remind me that your love is truly better than this life. Teach me in the hard days to rely on you alone, and then, please, don't let me forget it when my days get brighter! Thank you for your mercy and your goodness and, of course, for your love. In your holy name I pray, amen.