Faith In The Wilderness
Faith in the Wilderness
Psalm 63
In late August 2026, more than 112 miles of the Rio Grande ran dry between Cochiti and Elephant Butte — the longest dry stretch recorded there in at least two decades. Water managers had to release hundreds of millions of gallons just to keep stressed sections alive. It's a striking modern picture of Psalm 63: when a riverbed you've always counted on turns to dust, you suddenly understand how precious water really is.
David wrote this psalm from his own dry place — not a peaceful retreat, but exile in the wilderness of Judah, fleeing a son who wanted him dead. David knew what comfort and security felt like. He was king. And in the one season he had neither, he wrote: "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you... my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water."
Notice what's missing from this psalm: petitions. David never asks God to get him out of the wilderness. He just asks for more of God.
He thirsted for God. Not for what God could give him, but for God himself. David had once beheld God's glory in the sanctuary — but even that place was never the point. It was where he met God, not a substitute for him. What David approached through the sanctuary, we now have in Jesus Christ, who is God dwelling among us. We don't have to long for a place we've lost. We can draw near to God right where we are.
He rested in God. "I will be fully satisfied... on my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night."Not I hope to be satisfied someday — a decision, made in the dry land, to be satisfied in God now. And underneath David's grip on God was something steadier: God's grip on him. "I cling to you; your right hand upholds me." The Christian life was never only about how tightly we hold on. It's about whose hand is holding us.
He trusted God. David could have used his power to destroy the people lying about him and hunting him down. Instead, he left vindication to God. That's a hard trust to hold — most of us would rather see the score settled ourselves. But David's confidence wasn't in his own strength; it was in God's justice.
The wilderness has a way of revealing what we actually believe we need. We assume it's the circumstances changing, the pressure lifting, the enemy disappearing. David needed those things too — but his deepest cry was simpler: "O God, you are my God."
Wherever your wilderness is today, you don't need to find your way back to some easier season before you can meet with God. Through Christ, you can meet him now.
Make David's words your own: My soul thirsts for you. My soul clings to you. And rest in this — his right hand is already holding you.
