“O God, You are my God; early will I seek you: My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1
Why was David so great a man in the sight of God? Why was he chosen by God as a young man, then to be anointed as Israel’s king, though for a time he would not be established as such? Was it because of his gifts, capacities, or even his almost perfect appearance, and stature as a man? In a sermon by Paul the Apostle in the city of Antioch, Paul declared that God had said of David so many years before: “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” (Acts 13:22) What did God see in David that He did not see in others? When God spoke to Samuel the prophet, in the days of the reign of Saul over the kingdom of Israel, concerning the anointing of another king, God did so because of Saul’s failure to honor and obey Him. It is then that God instructs Samuel to go find Jesse the Bethlehemite to anoint one of his sons to be king. In fact, the Lord said, “For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” (1 Samuel 16:1) It was during Samuel’s encounter with Jesse, and after seeing all of his sons except one, who were rejected by the Lord, that He would instruct Samuel to “…not look at his appearance or at his physical stature…for the Lord does NOT see as a man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (v.7) Just as God’s thoughts and ways are not those of sinful men, so He reveals to us by His choice and anointing of David, that the Lord looks deeper, beyond the superficial appearance of men, to what is truly in the heart, the basic attitudes of the heart.
In David, God would find something in his heart that was of greater value and worth from an eternal standpoint, than all things superficial and man-made. It was first a disposition of heart, where this young shepherd was devoted to God, clean before Him, and whole-hearted in his response to the revelation of Christ to his heart. By the anointing of the Spirit upon him, David would go forth, though at times greatly resisted by enemies, and tested by the circumstances that surrounded him, to be serve God, seeking to honor Him above all else. We see this when twice after having been anointed by Samuel, and finding himself in very dangerous circumstances, he could have taken the life of Saul, the rebellious king whom the Lord had rejected. However, he knew that Saul was still God’s anointed as king, and thus, would not harm him, though Saul was seeking to kill David.
So, David became a man who was principally a man after God’s own heart, in pursuit of God, to know Him, love and serve Him. What drove David onward in this pursuit, one which took precedence over all that pertained to the kingdom over which he would reign as king? It was a thirst for God, a thirsting after God. Though David was a sinner like every other man, and would fail in his devotion to God, dishonoring Him by sin, he would be characterized by a renewed thirst for God. His sin, though a grievous blow to the honor of God, would be forgiven by God because he repented and sought God’s forgiveness and cleansing. However, out of that failure arose an even deeper thirst to know God, pursue Him, and find Him as the greatest reality of his life. Nothing in the world, no pleasure, power, or position, would turn David aside from this central and dominant desire, to find, and to know, and grow in the knowledge of Christ. David, in Psalm 63, reveals that he is in pursuit of God, early, in response to a thirst to know God.
Dear Father, Satisfy our thirsting hearts. In Jesus’ name, Amen.