what Psalms do for me
express same delight in God
which made David dance
The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance.
I am not saying that this is so pure or so profound a thing as the love of God reached by the greatest Christian saints and mystics.
But I am not comparing it with that, I am comparing it with the merely dutiful “church-going” and laborious “saying our prayers” to which most of us are, thank God not always, but often, reduced.
Against that it stands out as something astonishingly robust, virile, and spontaneous; something we may regard with an innocent envy and may hope to be infected by as we read.
From Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis (Geoffrey Bles Ltd, London, 1958).
You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
From Psalm 63.
No Haiku For You 