Worshiping Your Way Through the Wilderness

“What we are desperate for, we give our attention to.”

When you’re desperate, your mind orbits what you want most—like kids in the back seat asking, “Are we there yet?” before the car clears the neighborhood, or like white-knuckling a steering wheel when your gas light suddenly flips on leaving the ballpark and all you can think is, Where’s the closest station?

Psalm 63 shows what holy desperation looks like. David isn’t lost in mild inconvenience; he’s in the Judean wilderness, on the run after his own son Absalom has stolen the people’s hearts and mounted a coup (2 Samuel 14-18). It’s one thing to hide from a jealous king; it’s another to flee the city you love because your child is hunting you. Into that heartbreak, David writes, and the desert around him becomes a classroom inside him. Early Christians felt the force of this psalm so deeply that, as John Chrysostom noted, they ordained that no day should pass without publicly singing it. Why? Because wilderness is not a rare address in the life of faith—and Psalm 63 maps a road through it.

1. Desperate Faith Trusts in God (Psalm 63:1-2)

“You God are my God.” David begins with allegiance, not analysis. He isn’t speculating about a deity; he’s clinging to a covenant. That personal claim steadies every line that follows. Because God is my God, seeking Him becomes the priority—“earnestly,” early, before the day can scatter his focus. The wilderness has a way of simplifying us. David names his lack: it’s a “dry and parched land where there is no water.” Yet the thirst he names is not primarily for a drink; it’s for God. He doesn’t rattle off requests. In the whole psalm, he never asks for water, rescue, or revenge. He asks for God.

David also remembers. “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” He’s not in the sanctuary now; he’s in the dust. But memories from gathered worship—where he saw God’s power and glory among God’s people—become fuel in the night. That’s why showing up with the church matters. You’re stocking the shelves of your soul for a future wilderness. When the winds rise, you don’t want to be learning the song; you want it ready to sing.

Where does your mind go first in lack? Desperation puts a spotlight on your deepest desire. David’s spotlight lands on God.

2. Desperate Faith Treasures God (Psalm 63:3-5)

“Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.” This isn’t ascetic bravado; it’s a king talking—a man who knows palaces, feasts, cedar, and cheering crowds. From the desert, he still says, Your love outranks every good under the sun. His words don’t shrink in the wilderness; they rise. “I will praise you… I will lift up my hands.” Worship becomes a weapon. The desert tries to mute you; praise turns up the volume on truth until joy reenters the room.

Spurgeon’s line, quoted in the talk, captures it perfectly: “There was no desert in his heart, although there was desert all around him.” That’s the miracle of treasuring God. Circumstances stop dictating your climate. David even says, “I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods.” Nothing about his setting screams “banquet.” No servant brings bread. Yet his soul feasts—because he’s feeding on the worth of God. It’s the reverse of our usual pattern, where we chase what doesn’t satisfy and end hungrier after we bite than before. David is discovering what he already sang elsewhere: worship in the wilderness isn’t denial—it’s a deeper diet.

Consider the witness this becomes. People know when you’re in a desert. When joy starts leaking out of cracked ground, it provokes holy curiosity. Why would anyone want what we have if we walk through life as though we don’t want it? David shows another way: treasure God, and your desert grows a spring.

3. Desperate Faith Trusts God (Psalm 63:6-11)

“On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.” Night is when anxieties multiply and answers hide. David meets the night with memory. He takes present tense action—I remember—on past grace, and it births present confidence: “Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.” That shift matters. Remembering is not nostalgia; it’s fuel for now. The God who was faithful is faithful.

Then comes one of the most tender lines in the psalm: “I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.” Both are true—David clings, God holds—but only one grip guarantees survival. The talk’s picture fits perfectly: crossing a busy street, a parent and child both “hold hands,” yet the child’s safety rests in the parent’s grip. Your obedience clings; God’s omnipotence upholds. That’s how you rest. You do the clinging; you sleep because He won’t let go.

The psalm closes with the sober language of justice: enemies, swords, jackals. It isn’t a license for vengeance; it’s a declaration of trust. David refuses to manage outcomes or manipulate payback. He will let God be judge. “The king will rejoice in God.” That’s where he lands—not with a solved situation, but with a settled heart.

The talk ended by zooming in on the psalm’s verbs—the simple actions that mark a desperate life: seek, thirst, long, see, behold, glorify, praise, lift (hands), be satisfied, praise (again), remember, think, sing, cling, rejoice. You don’t need a complex plan; you need a faithful one.

The desert may not move today. But there can be no desert in your heart today, even with desert all around you. Attention follows desperation; let yours follow David’s. Seek the Lord, treasure His love as better than life, and trust the hand that upholds you through the watches of the night.