Commonplace –
“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land” (Psalm 63:1a).
It is good to seek God in the morning. Before breakfast and the busy-ness of the day settles in on us, time set aside to read the Word and draw close to God prepares us for all the day brings.
In the title of Psalm 63 is the description “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah”. Matthew Henry offers the following commentary on the ‘wilderness’:
“1. Even in Canaan, ye there were wildernesses, places less fruitful and less inhabited than other places. It will be so in the world, in the church, but not in heaven; there it is all city, all paradise, and no desert ground; the wilderness there shall blossom as the rose.
2. The best and dearest of God’s saints and servants may sometimes have their lot cast in a wilderness, which speaks them lonely and solitary, desolate and afflicted, wanting, wandering, and unsettled, and quite at a loss what to do with themselves.
3. All the straits and difficulties of a wilderness must not put us out of tune for sacred songs; but even then it is our duty and interest to keep up a cheerful communion with God. There are psalms proper for a wilderness, and we have reason to thank God that it is the wilderness of Judah we are in, not the wilderness of sin” (Henry 382).
Works Cited
Henry, Matthew. “Psalm 63.” Matthew Henry’s Commentary On the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition. Volume 3, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., March 1996.
Holy Bible: Giant Print with Study Aids. Dugan Publishers, Inc., 1984.
© 2025 Angela Hormberg
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