This morning I was meditating on Psalm 63, drawn specifically to the first four verses: “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.” (Ps 63:1-4)

Many translations call the “dry and parched land where there is no water” the “wilderness”. Biblically speaking, a wilderness can be a place or a trial we’re going through. So perhaps the correct question I should have asked is “what do you seek when you are in trial”. Truthfully, many times in a trial I seek to zone out in one manner or another. 

The Lord put in each of us a longing for Him (Is 26:9). I was reminded today that only the Lord can quench our thirst because the imagery implies something living, pure, and life-giving that continues to be celebrated in the Feasts of Booths: “He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them water as abundant as the seas; He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers” (Ps 78:15-16).

This was when Jesus declared: “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.'” (John 7:37-38)

Whatever trial or wilderness you find yourself in today, you have a plethora of things from which to choose on this earth to temporarily satisfy your thirst, but the refreshment won’t last and may even bring more pain than help. However, if you turn to Jesus, “rivers of living water will flow from with” you, because He is within you. And if you have sought Him to quench your thirst, allow your lips to glorify Him and praise Him with your uplifted hands. Others will wonder why you are praising the Lord, which gives you an opportunity to share His saving grace.