Pray for More of God
Psalms • Prayers for Life • Week 7
Psalm 63Pray for More of God
Faith is filled with next steps, acts of obedience, and opportunities to say yes to God. But Psalm 63 reminds us that our next yes cannot simply be about doing more for God. It must remain rooted in a deeper desire for more of God Himself.
Key Concept
Our next yes cannot simply be about doing more for God; it must be anchored in a deeper desire for more of God in our lives.
Weekly Prayer Focus
Psalm 63
Pray slowly through Psalm 63 this week. Ask God to deepen your desire for Him and help you remember the ways His presence, power, and love have already met you.
Scripture
Psalm 63
Philippians 3:7–14
There are countless “next yeses” in the life of faith—ways God may invite us to serve, obey, grow, forgive, give, join community, or take another step toward Him.
Those yeses matter.
But there is also a danger.
Our faith can quietly become another list of things to accomplish. We can begin measuring spiritual maturity by how much we are doing, how involved we are, how faithfully we serve, or how many spiritual boxes we have checked.
Psalm 63 invites us to examine something deeper than our activity:
What is my desire for God?
Our next yes must begin with our desire for God.
Two weeks earlier, the question of our “next yes” centered on serving and paying attention to the needs around us.
Then baptism gave us a visible picture of people taking a next step of obedience and publicly declaring their faith in Jesus.
There will always be another step we can take.
But our next yes cannot simply mean doing more for God.
Whatever we do for God must remain rooted in our desire for more of God.
Otherwise, faith can slowly become achievement.
We begin performing for God instead of living in relationship with Him.
Psalm 63 brings us back to the heart.
David writes from the wilderness.
David's circumstances could hardly have been more difficult.
The shepherd God had chosen and raised up to become king was now facing rebellion within his own family. His son was attempting to take the throne. David had fled Jerusalem and found himself in the wilderness.
His family was fractured.
His kingship was threatened.
His future was uncertain.
David certainly had circumstances worth praying about.
He could ask God to restore the kingdom. He could pray for safety. He could ask for his family to be healed and for the conflict to end.
Those requests mattered.
Yet underneath all of them, Psalm 63 reveals an even deeper desire:
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you.
Psalm 63:1David thirsts for God in a land defined by thirst.
David is physically standing in a dry and parched wilderness.
The environment itself gives him language for what is happening within his heart.
He knows physical thirst.
But the thirst he names first is for God.
With everything else going on in his life, David says that underneath it all, his deepest longing is for more of God's presence.
David does not deny what is broken around him, but he refuses to let those circumstances become his deepest desire.
That challenges many of us because our prayers often begin somewhere else.
God, fix this.
God, heal this.
God, change this situation.
God, remove this problem.
Those are appropriate prayers.
But how often do our prayers simply become:
“God, I want more of You.”
We can have faith while losing desire.
One of the subtler dangers in a long relationship with God is that spiritual activity can continue even while desire begins to fade.
We can come to church.
We can worship.
We can pray.
We can serve.
We can know the right answers.
And still become less hungry for God Himself.
We can remain active in our faith while our desire for God slowly grows colder.
Sometimes familiarity contributes to that.
Things that once captured our attention can become ordinary because we have encountered them repeatedly.
The extraordinary becomes routine.
The gift becomes familiar.
The wonder begins to fade.
And our relationship with God can experience that same drift if we stop paying attention.
Familiarity does not have to diminish desire.
David shows us another possibility.
His long history with God has not made him less interested in God.
It has made him want more.
The more he has experienced God's presence, the more he desires God's presence.
The more he has witnessed God's faithfulness, the more deeply he wants to know Him.
The relationship is not becoming stale.
It is becoming deeper.
The more David knows God, the more he desires God.
Desire grows when we remember.
David gives us an important clue to how his desire remains alive.
He remembers.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
Psalm 63:2David pays attention to what he has experienced of God.
He remembers moments when God's presence became tangible.
He remembers God's power.
He remembers God's glory.
He remembers God's love.
Remembering becomes fuel for desire.
- Where have I seen God's faithfulness?
- Where has God carried me through something difficult?
- Where have I experienced His presence?
- Where have I seen His power at work?
- Where have I experienced His mercy and love?
David is not simply rehearsing spiritual information.
He is paying attention to the story of God in his life.
Do not allow the extraordinary to become ordinary.
One reason our desire for God can diminish is that the rhythms of faith become familiar.
Church becomes something we do every week.
Prayer becomes routine.
Worship becomes another part of the schedule.
We hear that God loves us and think, “Yes, I know.”
But consider again what we are actually saying.
The God who created the universe sees you.
He knows you.
He loves you.
He calls you.
He gave Himself for you.
Pay attention until familiar truths become wonderful again.
Earlier in this series, we were challenged to allow creation to interrupt us.
When we notice the sky, the sun, the ocean, the trees, the wind, or the beauty around us, we can allow those ordinary moments to remind us that there is a Creator who made everything we see.
Remembering keeps us from moving through life asleep to the presence of God.
David is anchored in steadfast love.
David says:
Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
Psalm 63:3David describes a love unlike any other love he has experienced.
It is God's covenant love.
His steadfast love.
His loyal love.
A love that does not disappear when David's circumstances become unstable.
A love that does not rise and fall according to David's performance.
That love becomes an anchor.
David can desire more of God because he knows he is already held by the steadfast love of God.
David moves from thirst to satisfaction.
Psalm 63 begins with thirst.
“I thirst for you.”
Only a few verses later, David says:
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods.
Psalm 63:5Something remarkable has happened.
David's circumstances have not changed.
He is still in the wilderness.
His family is still fractured.
His kingship is still threatened.
His future remains uncertain.
But David moves from thirst to satisfaction because his hope has been re-anchored in who God is.
Our circumstances do not have to become perfect before our souls can find satisfaction in God.
David's satisfaction does not mean his pain is imaginary.
It means his pain no longer has to consume everything.
He can worship in the wilderness because he knows God is still present and God's love is still holding him.
Worship puts everything back in its proper place.
David responds by worshiping.
“My lips will glorify you.”
“I will praise you as long as I live.”
“In your name I will lift up my hands.”
Worship does not pretend the wilderness has disappeared.
Worship reminds David that the wilderness is not the whole story.
His attention turns toward the God who remains faithful within it.
When our primary desire becomes more of God, everything else begins to find its proper place.
We cling to God, but God is holding us.
One of the most important statements in Psalm 63 comes in verse 8:
I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 63:8David is active.
He clings.
He reaches.
He attaches himself to God.
Faith involves response, discipline, attention, and trust.
But David immediately reminds us that his security does not ultimately rest on the strength of his grip.
God's right hand is holding him.
We cling to God, but underneath our grip is the stronger hand of God holding us.
That is good news because our grip gets tired.
We lose focus.
We wander.
Our faith sometimes feels strong and sometimes feels fragile.
Our salvation is not dependent upon our ability to maintain a flawless grip on God.
God loves first.
God pursues first.
God moves toward us first.
God holds us.
Paul prayed the same prayer in a different way.
Centuries later, the apostle Paul writes from prison to the church in Philippi.
Paul had spent his life telling people about Jesus.
He had planted churches.
He had taught Scripture.
He had suffered because of his faith.
If anyone might have believed they had reached spiritual cruise control, it could have been Paul.
Yet Paul writes:
I want to know Christ.
Philippians 3:10Paul already knows Christ.
But he wants to know Him more.
This is not simply a request for more information.
Paul desires a deeper experience of the reality of Jesus—His resurrection power, His transforming work, and even a willingness to follow Christ when obedience becomes costly.
Our achievements cannot become the foundation of faith.
Before saying, “I want to know Christ,” Paul describes his impressive spiritual résumé.
He has achievements.
He has credentials.
He has accomplishments.
He has a long list of yeses.
But once Paul understands the grace of Jesus, those achievements can no longer function as the foundation of his relationship with God.
Knowing Christ is worth more than everything we could achieve for Christ.
Paul knows that being made right with God is not something he earns.
It is something he receives.
That frees him from turning faith into performance.
His desire becomes beautifully simple:
“I want to know Christ.”
Paul has not arrived.
Paul continues:
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal.
Philippians 3:12Paul acknowledges that he is still on the journey.
There is still more of Christ to know.
There is still more transformation to experience.
There is still more trust to develop.
There is still more surrender ahead.
Spiritual maturity does not mean arriving at a place where we no longer need God.
The deeper Paul goes with Jesus, the more he recognizes how much more of Jesus he wants.
Christ took hold of us first.
Paul describes his response this way:
I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Philippians 3:12The connection with Psalm 63 is striking.
David says, “I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.”
Paul says he is pressing forward to take hold of the One who first took hold of him.
Our pursuit of God begins inside God's pursuit of us.
We love because He loved first.
We cling because He is already holding.
We seek because He has already drawn near.
Every next yes should lead us toward more of Jesus.
There will continue to be next steps in our faith.
Join a community.
Serve someone.
Be baptized.
Practice generosity.
Forgive.
Pray.
Open Scripture.
Say yes to something God has been prompting in your heart.
Those things matter.
But they must never become trophies on a spiritual résumé.
Every next yes should ultimately deepen our desire to know Jesus.
The goal is not simply to become busier Christians.
The goal is relationship.
To know Christ.
To desire Him.
To remember Him.
To cling to Him.
And to discover again that even while we are clinging, His hand has been holding us all along.
What is your desire for God in this season?
Psalm 63 invites us to ask something more personal than, “What should I do next?”
It asks:
Do I desire more of God?
Maybe your desire feels strong right now.
Maybe it has grown cold.
Maybe faith has become familiar and routine.
Maybe you are in a wilderness and your prayers have become consumed by asking God to change your circumstances.
Wherever you are, David gives us a place to begin.
Remember.
Pay attention.
Notice God's hand in your life.
Remember His presence.
Remember His power.
Remember His steadfast love.
And pray again:
God, give me more of You.
Remember until desire grows.
Set aside a few minutes each day to remember where you have experienced God's presence, faithfulness, and love—and allow those memories to become prayer.
- Remember: Name one way you have seen God's hand at work in your life.
- Notice: Pay attention to something today that reminds you of God's presence, goodness, or love.
- Desire: Pray simply, “God, I want to know You more.”
- Respond: Consider your next yes and ask whether it is helping deepen your relationship with Jesus rather than simply adding another spiritual achievement.
Reflection Questions
- What is my desire for God in this season—growing, diminished, distracted, or somewhere in between?
- What has God done in my life that I need to remember again so that my desire for Him can grow deeper?
A Prayer from Psalm 63
God, You are my God, and I want to seek You. In the midst of everything I want You to change, fix, heal, or provide, deepen within me a greater desire for You. Keep my faith from becoming routine or another collection of achievements. Help me remember where I have seen Your power, Your presence, Your faithfulness, and Your steadfast love. When my circumstances remain difficult, anchor me in the truth that Your love is better than life and that satisfaction can be found in You even in the wilderness. Teach me to cling to You, and when my grip becomes weak, remind me that Your right hand is holding me. Like Paul, let the prayer of my life become simple and true: I want to know Christ. Amen.
