Psalms 63 (Part II)

² I have seen You in the sanctuary
    and beheld Your power and Your glory.

The Message says, "So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in Your strength and glory."  Why is he in this sanctuary?  Because as he stated in verse 1, God is the only life in this desolate place.  The Lord is living water in a dry and parched land.

There are many dry and parched places.  This world is certainly full of them.  There are many things that seem to be living water but only take you to a dryer and more desolate place.  Sometimes our hearts are dry and parched.  The wise learn that there is no other possible life apart from the living God.  In Him a well spring of life flows abundantly.

Where is this sanctuary for David there in the wilderness?  A tent?  The desert?  Did he build an alter?  I suggest it is within David himself.  His heart became a sanctuary of praise and worship to his God.  Have you had those times when you were drawn to God and where you physically were was completely irrelevant.  Your heart was in a different world. 

The chorus to the song "Living Sanctuary" say:

"Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary

Pure and holy, tried and true

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living

Sanctuary for You."

We can be sure that where God is, it is holy.  If God's Spirit is reigning in ours, we can be sure that there is a sacred and holy place inside where His presence can be found.  In a dry and parched land where there was no water to drink, he found a source of living water that filled and overflowed.

Another interpretation of the organization of these verses is "I earnestly seek You in a dry and weary land where there is no water to see Your power and might as I have beheld You in the sanctuary."  These lend to a past time when he was in a sanctuary and experienced God's holiness.  And now he thirst for that presence of God and longs for it.  He has been in the desert of God's distance and he wants a closeness with God, more than anything in life.

Do I crave God that way?  Am I way to easygoing about those times when God isn't close?  Is there an alarm sounding in my soul that I just keep hitting the "snooze" button on regarding God's calling to me to be close?  Is there an internal pull from every cell of my being that doesn't understand how it will go on one more minute without being close to Him?  Right now, YES.  I pray that I'll always have that.