Psalm 63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches
What is the first thing on your mind in the morning and the last thing on your mind at night. Maybe you don’t see any pattern or maybe you can’t even recall what is on your mind at such times. Maybe it is easier to ask, “What is the first thing you do and the last thing you do as an action in the bookends of your day?” The truth is, most people begin the day by looking at a screen and they end the day by looking at a screen. Someone has said, “Your phone knows you better than your own mother.” That may well be true.
Last weekend my wife and I had a special dinner at Cheesecake Factory for her birthday. We sat down, ordered, and soon after a group of four ladies sat down right near to us at a close table. Almost immediately, in less time than it takes to tell it, they were all absorbed in their phones. Maybe they were texting each other, but immediately they were on their phones. People talk about “the anxious generation.” A lot of that comes down to being so absorbed in one’s phone, screen, or internet, an overload of information. We are indeed an anxious generation. That may well describe you regardless of your age or the cohorts with which you associate.
Psalm 63 is a reminder to protect the bookends of your day, the beginning and end of your day. What is in between is often lickety-split, but if you can begin and end well, it surely helps you. There are three words to think about in regards to this.
The first word is eager. Psalm 63:1 says, “O God, thou art my God; early [eagerly] will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” The context is when David was in the wilderness of Judah, perhaps fleeing for his life from his son Absalom. He was disconnected from the ark of God and he felt alienated, yet his thirst was for God Himself.
You can train your thirst. I talked to someone recently who had not had a soda in over a year; that was a deliberate decision. He said, “Once I had a habit of not drinking soda, I realized how badly I sometimes felt when I was drinking it. I just didn’t know what to compare it to.” My point is that is a cultivated taste. Just like we are addicted to our phones. Dopamine is triggered by so much internet, social media, and so on. You can make decisions about what you ought to have in your head and how much, but there is cultivation afoot here. You can cultivate what you want to be eager about and what you want to be thirsty for. David, because he had a thirst for God, was satisfied by God. Verse 5 says, “My soul shall be satisfied.” Why? It was because he was eager for God. Protect the bookends of your day, early, first thing in the morning.
The second word is occupied. Verse 6 says, “When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” David is satisfied. He is occupied, not busy. Sometimes we are busy, but our busyness of often just distraction. So, we need to cultivate “I remember” and “I meditate” or think about. So, there is observation, memory, and meditation. I look about me throughout the day for the presence of God, I remember that at the end of the day, and I think about it. Many times a couple will be ready to drop off into sleep when one of them all of a sudden brings up some tense subject or problem that must be taken care of. I’m not saying we should not talk about problems, but if you are going to get rest, you have got to give yourself margin in which to do it. You can’t begin each evening by thinking about all your problems. If I am occupied by my problems, I am not absorbed with God. So, eager and occupied.
The third word is joyful. Verse 11 says, “But the king shall rejoice in God.” Here is a king who has everything and needs nothing, yet he is joyful, boasting in God. Joy is not the absence of problems. Who has that? Joy is the presence of a God who supersedes even the king. Your phone promises you everything you need, but so does God. Which of these two occupies your life first thing in the morning and last thing at night?