Psalm 63
March 15, 2026 Thank you, Lord, for the blessing of calling you “my God”—the blessing of a personal and close relationship with you. May this heart cry increase in our daily lives.
Thank you, Lord, that when we are in a stretch of life that feels like a barren, dry, Badlands kind of terrain, you hold out to us this example of David: our soul thirsting for you, our flesh fainting for you, our responding to the oppressive adversity with a corresponding earnest seeking of you. May such longing and seeking grow deeper in our lives.
Thank you, Lord, for your power and glory and steadfast love. May we trust these rich aspects of your character, especially when life is a wilderness. May we cherish the reality that your love is better than life. May that reality steady us and move us to praise you with joy and purpose and perseverance.
Thank you, Lord, for deep soul satisfaction. May we trust you for that, even experience that, amid the wilderness. Root out of our lives faulty dependence on false sources of ultimate satisfaction.
Thank you, Lord, for your help on a daily basis, for your protective wings under which we may sing for joy. May that song be strong and clear. May the security you give be a prompt for us to think about you in wakeful nighttime hours.
Thank you, Lord, for your right hand that upholds us. May we cling to you from the depths of our heart.
Thank you, Lord, for your decisive defeat of our enemies—the world, the flesh, the devil, and death. Through Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection you dealt these enemies a mortal blow. May we boast in you and this victory you have won for us.
We reflect, Lord Jesus, on this victory, remembering that to obtain it you had to experience defeat from the human perspective. While this psalm is wonderfully fulfilled first and foremost by you, showing your earnest longing for and trust in your heavenly Father amid the wilderness-like journey of your life, we marvel that you willingly surrendered yourself to a defeat such as this psalm describes of the king’s enemies. It was not your earthly enemies who went down into the depths of the grave; you did. It was not your earthly enemies who were given over to the sword—and the nails; you were. And if it were not for your followers who promptly retrieved your bloody body from the cross, your corpse would have been prey for jackals and other scavengers. In this horrible, apparent defeat, you were working a greater victory—a victory that would include us, whose benefits would flow to us, whose blessings would be offered to your enemies as you delay the judgment of this psalm and invite your enemies into the blessings of this psalm.
What a King we have! What a victory you have won! What a close relationship with God we can have as a result—a close and vital life-changing relationship so vividly portrayed in this psalm. May we follow in your footsteps, riding on your back (so to speak), as we embrace this psalm for ourselves.
From this posture of trust and closeness and joy and security, we pray, Lord, about a number of current concerns as well.
Our world situation: grant peace in the Middle East. Give wisdom and guidance to the leaders of all the countries involved.
Our own country: as you have taught us, give wisdom to leaders at national, state, and local levels. Guide them in your ways. Have mercy on our country.
People in our spheres of influence, our daily rhythms of life: open their hearts to the good news about Jesus. Open doors for us to share that news.
Our congregation: may our children and teens, through the ministries of Explorers and The Edge, and wise example and teaching at home, come to believe and follow Jesus whole-heartedly. Guide us in our upcoming nominating and congregational voting process: put in place the servants and leaders of your choice. Guide our perspective and our pathway as we address the space needs of our building. As we seek to bring all people into healthy relationship with you and with one another, may the health described in this morning’s psalm and in the Beatitudes be on the grow among us and through us.
We pray because of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, and all the congregation said, “Amen!”