📊 Psalm 63:1 | The First Fruits of Your Day

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📧 In today’s email…

• A brief ancient Hebrew lesson 🗣️ 

• We’re all thirsty💧🌴 

• Reflect: The first fruits of your day ⏰ 

• Tuesday Trivia about Psalm 63 📊

 🧠 Memorize

_{see if you know what words go in the blanks}

O God, you ___ __ ___; earnestly I ____ ___;

my soul thirsts for ___;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1

🗣️ Hebrew Lesson: ‘Earnestly’ & ‘my soul’

Today, let’s dig into the first part of verse 1.

The Hebrew word for ‘earnestly’ is šāḥar, which literally means "to seek early" or "diligently pursue."

The picture here is that David is seeking the Lord:

• first thing in the morning (early)

• with the kind of eagerness and urgency (diligence) we give to things that are important to us

David is seeking the Lord as his first priority in the day, not his last resort.

The word translated ‘my soul’ is nep̄eš.

Elsewhere in Scripture, the word nep̄eš is also translated as “heart”, “soul”, “life”, “living creature” and “mind.”

So when David writes, “my soul thirsts for you,” he’s talking about his whole person, his entire being.

As David composes this Psalm, his entire being is thirsty for the presence of God.

Thirst for the Garden 🌴 

Saint Augustine famously said:

The restlessness Augustine is referring to is an infinite thirst that all humans have.

A thirst for meaning, belonging and a sense of worth.

Ultimately - whether people know it or not - our deepest desire and thirst is to be in union with God, for eternity.

In one sense, it's to return to a Garden-of-Eden-like state where we exist in a perfect, loving relationship with God.

And nothing less than union with God will satisfy that infinite thirst.

The problem is..

We (even followers of Jesus) often seek to quench this thirst with things other than God.

We subconsciously hope that the next big thing will quench our thirst:

• a promotion, finding a spouse, getting a house, growing a following, the next vacation, making more money, etc.

But if you've ever gotten any of those things (or maybe all of them), you know that they are just like physical water -

They quench our thirst for a moment, but the satisfaction does not last.

Returning to the Garden 🌴 

In Genesis, humans start out having perfect union with God. And that union quicikly gets severed by sin.

But Jesus offers us a path back to the Garden - back to union with God through faith in him.

Apply & respond: The first fruits of your day ⏰ 

In today’s world, many parties are competing for your attention:

• news outlets

• coworkers, family members

• advertisers on tv and social media

But Psalm 63 is inviting us to give God our attention, especially first thing in the morning.

The biblical concept of tithing is about giving your first fruits to God.

It’s a way to declare with your actions (not just your mind) that your entire life belongs to God.

As you memorize Psalm 63:1 this week, start to notice what your mind is given to first thing in the morning.

Reflect

What is the first thing you think about when you wake up?

What finite thing do you most often expect to quench your infinite thirst?

💡 Throughout the rest of the week, we’ll dig deeper into the language of hunger and thirst used in Psalm 63:1.

Trivia 📊 

Click one of the options below. Let’s see how you do..

Answer key ✅ 

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1