YOUR LOVE IS BETTER THAN LIFE
Psalm 63-65
“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.”
In some ways David’s declaration that God’s love is better than life is startling; after all, without life you cannot appreciate that love!
The point, of course, is that without God’s love life itself would be insipid, tasteless and empty. The psalm’s header tells us that David was in the desert when he wrote this and perhaps he saw in the dry, empty and inhospitable desert something akin to what life would have been like if he never knew God, never experienced fellowship with him, never knew his goodness and his love.
The people he is surrounded by only knows how to plot evil. “Surely the human mind and heart are cunning” he declares, and the presence of God in his life is like an antidote to the poison that emanates from those who spend so much of their energy putting others down so that their own star may rise.
When he looks at life he realises that God is the One who enriches it, imbuing life on earth with joy and gladness. It is out of God’s generosity of heart that the earth is bountiful and there is so much that we can enjoy and be sustained by.
If indeed this is our God, would it not be right to consider that he, being the source of all that we value and enjoy, all that sustains us, all that excites us and impassions us, is better than life? And if so, would it not be the wisest thing to do to draw close to him?
“On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.”