Just Think About It
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1 NASB
Seek You earnestly– If you’re going to understand what it means to seek God earnestly, you’ll have to know something about the Piel stem. Oh, that sounds complicated. After all, we aren’t familiar with Hebrew verb stems. We know our own verbs: past, present, future, etc., but Hebrew is a strange language to us. So when we want to really know what David is saying, we need to wade into (somewhat) unfamiliar water. Fortunately, this little pond is simple:
“The Piel stem is the most flexible in its use of all the various stem formations; it can express simple action, intensive action, resultative action, causative action, or other kinds of action (all in active voice) depending on the context and the specific verb.”[1]
What this means is that almost always šāḥar (to seek) is not about thinking about it. It’s about doing something about it. It’s active engagement. Instead of reading the verse, you decide to investigate. You get out the dictionaries. You pray about it. You act on it. You put in the time and effort to make it part of who you are. You are painstakingly diligent in your quest. It’s not just a word on the page or a thought in a lexicon. Now it’s the way to live, the focus of your attention, the yearning of your heart. And then you know šāḥar.
Sometimes it helps to see how a word like this one is used in other places in the text. There are only a dozen occurrences, most of them in the poetic books (Job 7:21, 8:5, 24:5; Psalm 63:1, 78:34; Proverbs 1:28, 7:15, 8:17, 11:27, 13:24; Isaiah 26:9 and Hosea 5:15). They are all about getting to it early and often. In fact, another Hebrew word spelled with the same consonants means “dawn” or “early in the day.” That gives us a clue. If you’re going to seek God earnestly, it’s a first-thing-in-the-morning decision. Get up and get moving toward Him before the rest of life interferes. Set the tone at the beginning.
If He is your God, then the most important thing is to be connected with Him as soon as possible. Like the orthodox Jew today, you might want to start as soon as you open your eyes:
Modeh/Modah ani lifanekha melekh chai v’kayam shehecḥezarta bi nishmahti b’cḥemlah, rabah emunatekha
I give thanks before you, King living and eternal, for You have returned within me my soul with compassion; abundant is Your faithfulness.
Topical Index: seek earnestly, šāḥar, early, dawn, Psalm 63:1
Thanks for this reminder and encouragment. He is generally and has been consistently in my first and last thoughts and intentions each day since I can remember. Perhaps the fringe benifit of very ealy childhood trama is one learns quickly where to go for help and peace of mind. It becomes a life long pattern.
Thanks Skip, I needed that encouragement
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way to go and to You I will lift up my soul. Ps 143:8
This verse has been a daily reminder to me for decades of not only the active renewal of God’s love, but my part as well – to put all my trust in Him and to direct my whole being to Him. I’ve always visualized it as an offering of my whole self. It’s a reminder I have to take with me all day long. It can be easy to forget in the midst of life.
Thanks Skip for the studies on this verse the last few days. I’ve needed it and have being encouraged by it. Hope all is well with you.