Psalm 63: 1 – 11
With or without ice?
A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. 4 Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. 7 Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice. 8 My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me. 9 But those who seek my life, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. 10 They shall fall by the sword; They shall be a portion for jackals. 11 But the king shall rejoice in God; Everyone who swears by Him shall glory; But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.
Why is drinking cold water bad for you?
Drinking cold water, especially in summer, feels heavenly. It helps you cool down in a matter of seconds. But ever thought about how it might be harming your body?
Why do you think restaurants serve you water in ice? Have you ever had a lot to eat at the restaurant and polished it off with a great desert? Maybe on the way home your stomach starts to bother you. Why is this happening? Ice cold water stops your digestion, so you will have room enough for desert.
You've enough reasons to restrict the use of cold water as it affects your digestive tract in harmful ways. Drinking cold water shrinks blood vessels, weakens immune system, and causes indigestion. Drink warm or room temperature water to keep health issues away.
When eating out, I always ask my server for water with no ice, even in summer. This may seem odd, so let me explain why.
Imagine This… What does your body do? What does your skin do? Are you relaxed and open, or tight and constricted?
You probably know that cool or room temperature water opens your pores and makes your skin feel looser, while cold water closes your pores and constricts your skin. So, what do you think drinking cold water does to your digestive tract? Drinking ice cold water is bad for you and your health.
When you drink cold beverages, your blood vessels shrink, your digestion becomes restricted, and hydration is hindered.
Instead of working to digest the food and absorb the nutrients to create energy, your body expends energy to regulate your temperature. This can lead to water loss.
Drinking cold water after a meal creates excess mucus in your body, which can lead to a decrease in the immune system function, making it easier to catch cold and other illnesses.
If you eat food while drinking cold beverages or immediately after, the water temperature solidifies fats from the foods you’ve just eaten, and the body in turn finds it hard to digest the unwanted fats from your body.
Some believe drinking ice water is beneficial because it burns more calories. I argue that we do not want to make our digestive system work harder; we should make things easy for the digestive system. There are many other ways to burn calories!
Here are some benefits of drinking just cool or room temperature water:
, This leads to faster and increased hydration.
. Natural digestive enzymes are stimulated and therefore your digestion is enhanced.
. Food breaks down more easily.
. Your bowel movement is better (warm water with lemon in the morning is great for this).
. This purifies your blood and increases your body’s natural detoxification processes via your skin, kidneys, and lymphatic system.
Once you get into the habit of drinking cool water at room temperature, you will notice a dramatic improvement in your digestion and the way your body feels while eating and after the meal. Some have also reported reduction in sugar cravings.
So, the next time you eat out, ask your server to “Hold the Ice!”
I sincerely believe that you are spirit led believers in our Precious Holy Almighty God El Shaddai. Why can I make such a claim? It is easy. It is just plain old common sense that a person makes it his or her pursuit to learn more about our Great and Wonderful God is a thirsty believer. You cannot drink in enough of our Magnificent Holy Creator. Am I right or am I right?
So, my thirsty friends let us eat and drink in our fill from today’s great scripture.
A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
It is noticeable that there is here no dedication to the Chief Musician, and no mention of the tune to which it was to be sung. Perhaps the aim was to indicate the close connection between this Psalm and the previous one.
Verse 11 of the Psalm refers in a positive way to the king, so that, unless we see that verse as added later, this time ‘in the wilderness of Judah’ must have in mind David’s flight from Absalom’s rebellion. If it was written as an almost immediate consequence of David sending the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15.24-26) it brings special meaning to some of the phrases used. There must have been an emptiness within him when he saw the Ark moving back towards Jerusalem, but an emptiness met by recognizing that the closeness of God was not affected by the absence of ritual symbols. He knew that God was as much with him in his camp and in his bed, as He was in the Tent in Jerusalem.
The Psalm may be divided into four parts:
1). David’s flight through the parched wilderness thirsting for water brings home to him how much his own inner life thirsts after God, in the same way as being in the sanctuary had once brought home to him God’s Glory (63.1b-3).
2). His refreshed vision of God has restored his heartfelt spiritual satisfaction, has enhanced his praise towards God and has reminded him that it is God Who Is his refuge (63.4-7).
3). Because, from deep within him, he follows hard after God, God’s fight hand upholds him, so that those who are seeking to destroy him will themselves be destroyed (63.8-10).
4). The consequence of God’s Judgment on those who rebel against the king will be that the king will rejoice in God, and those who are faithful to their oaths of loyalty sworn in God’s Name will glory (63.11).
There is an interesting pattern in that the first part has ten lines, the second part has eight lines, the third part has six lines, and the last part has four lines.
In his flight David compares his awareness of God as the One Who will satisfy his spiritual thirst in the wilderness, with his awareness of the glory of God in the Sanctuary. Both circumstances bring home to him God’s covenant love, and both fill him with praise.
1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.
As David and his men fled from Absalom through the wilderness of Judah (2 Samuel 15.23), having watched the Ark return to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 15.24-26) as they travelled on towards the Jordan, they thirsted, and it was then that David’s thirst reminded him of the God Whom he loved and Whom his soul craved, the God Whom of late he had been treating too casually. Looking around at the wilderness, which was in such contrast to the palace that he had left and seeing what a dry and wearisome land it was, it brought home to him his own situation of forsakenness, and in turn this brought home to him his hunger for God. There is nothing like being in the wilderness to make us think of God. So, in danger of his life, he cried out to Him, longing after Him with the same thirst that he had for water.
He knew that the fact that his circumstances had changed did not alter the fact that God was still his God as he cried out, ‘O God, you are my God.’ David realized that it was God’s concern for him that had brought him up sharp because he had grown slack in his rulership and in his religious life. And now his reverses had brought home to him his need to know God afresh. He had become once more athirst for God. And he longed after Him more than he longed after water in a waterless land.
It is often necessary for God to allow problems to happen to shake us out of complacency. For it is so easy for us, when all is going well, to proceed onwards and let God slip into the background. And God thus must wake us up with a jolt, as He did David here.
2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.
In the same way as he now looked on the wilderness and was reminded of the God Who could satisfy his deepest longings, so had he once looked on the Sanctuary and been reminded of God’s power and glory. Both experiences had brought home to him God’s inestimable worth and glory. Both had brought home to him the fact that to enjoy God’s covenant love, to have God on his side, was better than life. The Sanctuary which revealed God’s glory had caused him to praise God, and to recognize the depth of His covenant love, but even more so did this desolate wilderness as it reminded him of how God could satisfy his deepest thirst, and give him continuing life in the midst of it. It would have brought home to him afresh the days when he had fled from Saul and had been so wondrously upheld by God’ love. To him the very wilderness was a Sanctuary of God.
And so wherever he is, whether in the Sanctuary, or in the wilderness cut off from the Sanctuary, he can bless God and find deep inner satisfaction, and know that he shelters under God’s wings.
4 Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips.
Because God meets him, whether in the wilderness or in the Jerusalem Tent of Meeting, he will bless God for his whole lifetime, and lift up his hands in His Name. For he knows that God will fully satisfy his inner being with choice blessings, something which causes him to praise God with joyful lips. Thus, can he rejoice in the midst of trial, even when all appears to be going wrong.
The lifting up of the hands was a regular attitude of prayer It is compared with the offering up of the evening sacrifice, just as prayer is compared with the offering up of incense..
6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. 7 Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.
Even when he is lying wakeful in bed and remembers God, he meditates on Him and on what He is through the night watches. His thoughts are all on God. And he does this because it is God Who has been his help in trouble, and Who hides him in the shadow of His wings so that he can rejoice in the face of adversity. Thus, even when the world appears to be collapsing, he never lets his mind wander away too far from God. God is in all his thoughts. It is well for us if our thoughts are similarly constantly of God.
From David’s inner thoughts springs inner action. His inner life follows hard after God. Therefore God’s right hand upholds him and deals firmly with his enemies.
8 My soul follows close behind You; Your right hand upholds me. 9 But those who seek my life, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth. 10 They shall fall by the sword; They shall be a portion for jackals.
David clings on to God at all costs and follows Him, being bound to God by God Himself. To him God Is everything. And because this is so God’s right hand upholds him. The right hand is indicative of the most powerful hand. He is upheld and sustained by God in His Almightiness. He has total assurance that his enemies cannot prevail.
Those who seek his person to destroy him will instead find that they themselves will go to the grave. While he, in his heart, goes upwards to God, they will go downwards into the grave world, swallowed up like Korah and his fellow-rebels who sought to usurp God’s anointed priests (Numbers 16.31-33). While his life is given over to God, their lives will be given over to the sword. While he is God’s portion, they will be portions for scavengers, who will eat their dead bodies. Their future is bleak indeed. Such is the portion of those who ill-treat God’s people.
The final verse fits admirably into the story of the rebellion of Absalom, who by deceit and half-truths sought to overthrow David. Deeply aware of how Absalom and his supporters have maligned him, David is confident that their mouths will be stopped, while he, the king, being delivered, will rejoice in God, and all his loyal supporters will rejoice with him, and glory in God’s deliverance.
11 But the king shall rejoice in God; Everyone who swears by Him shall glory; But the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.
David has confidence that God will deliver him, with the consequence that he will rejoice in God. Similarly, those who have made their oaths of loyalty to him in God’s Name, and have abided by them, will have cause to glory, for they will see him vindicated. In contrast, rather than rejoicing and glorying, the mouths of those who speak lies and deceive others will be stopped. They will have no cause to rejoice and glory.
The whole Psalm is a reminder of God’s loyalty to those who are loyal to Him. And it is a reminder that just as David’s followers were to be loyal to their anointed king, so are we to be loyal to great David’s Greater Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
