Welcome to today's Daily PBJ devotional. If you're reading through the Old Testament with us this year, read Exodus 15, Job 33, and Psalm 63. This devotional is about Psalm 63. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body yearns for you, in a dry and weary land without water. So I have seen you in the sanctuary, and beheld your power and glory. Because your loving devotion is better than life, my lips will glorify you. So I will bless you as long as I live. In your name I will lift my hands. My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods. With joyful lips my mouth will praise you. When I remember you on my bed, I think of you through the watches of the night. For you are my help. I will sing for joy in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. But those who seek my life to destroy it will go into the depths of the earth. They will fall to the power of the sword. They will become a portion for foxes. But the king will rejoice in God. All who swear by him will exult, for the mouths of liars will be shut. This is God's word. The human body can live for a few weeks without food, for a few days without water, and for a few minutes without oxygen. If your body is deprived of any of these things for long enough, it will be difficult for you to think about anything else. If you can't breathe and will die in a few minutes, you won't care how you're going to pay for the mortgage next month or whether the Lions will draft a quarterback in the first round. The superscription to this psalm claims that David wrote in the desert of Judah. In verse 11, he refers to himself as the king. So the setting of this passage may be when David fled from Absalom, his son. Although he was not in immediate danger of starvation or dehydration, David was in a state of deprivation. He was cut off from the water springs of Jerusalem and from the richest of foods he would have enjoyed in his palace. What David craved in the desert, however, was not water or food. It was God. You, God, are my God. Earnestly I seek you. I thirst for you. My whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Those were the opening words of this psalm in the NIV's translation. Out in the desert of Judah, David was deprived of God in the sense that he couldn't see God in the sanctuary, as he put it, which is the tabernacle. Out there in the desert, he couldn't offer sacrifices, sing with the people, or hear the Torah read and explained aloud. Living in exile, excluded from the comforts and necessities of life, David longed for God more than anything else. He believed that I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods when he rejoiced in God. None of us knows what it's like to run for your life into the desert. But some people, maybe some reading this even, know what it is like to have all our financial reserves stripped away and to be evicted from your home. Others of you know what it is like to lose your family in tragedy or in divorce. In our moments of deprivation and desperation, do we long for fellowship with God or simply for him to deliver us from discomfort? The Bible encourages us to enjoy everything we have—family, material goods, good weather, whatever—as gifts from God. But this psalm calls us to believe that nothing can satisfy us like knowing and worshiping God can. See verse 1, verse 5, and verse 11 for that. Does your walk with God give you that kind of joy and satisfaction? I hope it does, or I hope you're growing in that direction. This is something that indicates a maturity in the Christian life, and this is where God wants to take each one of us who knows him and loves him by faith. So think about that in context of your walk with God. What could you do without, and what would you do without, if it meant having God? Walk closely with you every day. Think about that today, and I'll see you next time. May God bless you. Hope you have a great day.