My Heart and my flesh cry out for the Living God

This cry can only come from the new heart, born from above through the Holy Spirit. Without it we cannot and do not recognise our need of God, nor have a need of Him at all or even a knowledge of our lack of Him. In Ezekiel 36:26 God Himself says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

Psalm 84:2 My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Let’s take a look at what some of the words of this incredible heart-reaching verse, in which David so yearns for God, are saying from the original Hebrew:

1. Soul - HEB - nephesh – that which breathes, the breathing substance or being, soul, the inner being of man; living being (with life in the blood); seat of emotions and passions; the man himself, self, person or individual

2. Longs: – HEB – ka?saph – to long for, yearn for, long after; to long for (deeply)

3. Faints: HEB – ka?la?h – to accomplish, cease, consume, determine, end, fail, finish, be complete, be accomplished, be ended, be at an end, be finished, be spent

4. Courts – HEB – cha?tse?r - court, enclosure, settled abode

5. Heart – HEB – le?b – inner man, mind, will, heart, understanding; soul; inclination, resolution, determination (of will)

6. Flesh – HEB – ba?s?a?r – of the body, flesh as frail or erring (man against God)

7. Cries out - HEB -ra?nan -to be overcome, to give a ringing cry (in joy, exaltation, distress) to overcome, to cry out, shout for joy, give a ringing cry, to cry aloud (in summons, exhortation of wisdom)

8. For – HEB – l’e / ‘e?l / ‘el – to, toward, unto, in among, into,

9. Living - HEB – chay – living, alive, revival, renewal, sustenance, maintenance
also from the HEB – cha?ya?h – to live, have life, remain alive, sustain life, live prosperously, live for ever, be quickened, be alive, be restored to life or health, to continue in life, remain alive, to revive, be quickened
a) from sickness
b) from discouragement
c) from faintness
d) from death

10. God – HEB - e?l - God, the one true God, Jehovah, strength, power, mighty one, Also from HEB ‘ayil – ram (as sacrifice)

Matthew Henry says this:

It was an entire desire; body, soul, and spirit concurred in it. He was not conscious to himself of any rising thought to the contrary. It was an intense desire; it was like the desire of the ambitious, or covetous, or voluptuous. He longed, he fainted, he cried out, importunate to be restored to his place in God’s courts, and almost impatient of delay. Yet it was not so much the courts of the Lord that he coveted, but he cried out, in prayer, for the living God himself. O that I might know him, and be again taken into communion with him! 1Jo1:3. Ordinances are empty things if we meet not with God in the ordinances.

Ordinances definition by yourdictionary.com:
or·di·nance (ôrd?‘n ?ns) noun

1. a direction or command of an authoritative nature
2. that which is held to be a decree of fate or of a deity
3. an established or prescribed practice or usage, esp. a religious rite.

It is quite wonderful to read a verse in this way as you not only get a meaning of the words, but get a sense of the person of David himself and also the heart of God in response. David was a man, of whom God said – Acts 13:22
And when He had removed him (Saul), He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’From this man’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Saviour—Jesus—.

What treasure is to be gleaned, if we will but take time to sit and mediate upon the word of the Lord.

Can you identify with this cry of David? Have you felt it? Does it consume you?

My prayer is simply this: That we will truly hunger and thirst after the Lord, not for what He can give us or bless us with, but just for Himself alone. The richness of the reward is beyond words and as Lyn mentioned in her comment below, Jesus is the reward. What more could we possibly want?

I close with a poem by Oswald Chambers in which he shares what it is to yearn for the Lord and to be away from the world and alone with Him.
In the Love of Christ
Jessie

EMANCIPATION

(London, December 29, 1893)

Away from the world and the cruel,

Away from the day and its strife;

Away from the sad and the joyful,

Away from the struggle of life.

Away through the high hush of midnight,

Away from myself am I borne,

Away to the region of music,

Where the beautiful ever is worn.

Like a strange eager thing, half-frightened,

Like the rushing of wind held back,

My soul, yearning, longing was waiting,

Strained intensely, as held on a rack.

Far away, now so near—now so far

Came a presence so painfully dear;

Away burst my soul from its longing,

Away burst my heart from the fear.

Home from those wayward wanderings,

Home from that cold foreign clime,

Home, to the arms of “Our Father,”

Where I am all His and He’s mine.