Better Than Life

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 324, Better Than Life.

Hear these words from Psalm 63, verse 3 — let them land:

"Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you."

David wrote this in the wilderness of Judah. Not from a quiet room, not from a place of ease. He was fleeing. He was thirsty. The ground was dry, the sun was relentless, and danger was close. And yet — yet — the first thing on his lips was not a complaint. It was worship. Think about that. The faith David carried did not wait for comfortable conditions before it praised. It praised in the middle of the wilderness.

Why? Because David knew something the desert could not take from him.

The word we translate as "steadfast love" in this verse — in the original Hebrew it is hesed. And hesed is not a feeling. It is not the kind of love that shows up when everything is going well. Hesed is loyal, unbreakable, covenant love — God's commitment to you that does not depend on your circumstances, does not depend on your performance, does not depend on how you woke up this morning. It is eternal. And in Christ, it is yours.

David says this love is better than life. Feel the weight of that. In the ancient world, life was the greatest good anyone could imagine — it was everything. And David looks at everything and says: God's love is worth more. Not because life doesn't matter — life is God's gift and it matters deeply — but because without this love at the center, life loses what holds it together. It is God's hesed that gives everything else its meaning.

And maybe you're asking: but is that love actually real? Is it more than a beautiful line in an ancient poem?

The answer isn't found in an argument. It's found at a cross.

Jesus is the definitive proof that God's hesed is not poetry — it is reality. He gave His own life so that you would know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that you are loved. David's psalm was longing for something. Calvary answered it. The love that is better than life was proven by the death of the Son — and confirmed by the resurrection.

So when David says "my lips will praise you" — he is not describing a feeling that came over him naturally. He is making a choice. In the middle of the wilderness. With a parched throat. With a heavy heart. He decides: I will praise. Because praise does not wait for the wind to shift — praise opens your eyes to what God has already done. And when you praise what He has already done, the wilderness begins to look different.

Here is your call today. Before breakfast — before you check your phone, before the news, before the day has a chance to take hold of you — sit quietly for two minutes. Just two minutes. And say out loud one thing — one concrete thing — for which you give thanks to God's steadfast love. Not because you are feeling it perfectly right now. But by faith in what He has already done for you in Christ. Let your lips respond before the world speaks first.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.