A couple of years ago, I attempted to memorize Psalm 103. I just loved the poetic and beautiful way it read aloud. As I thought deeply on the first 5 verses, trying to memorize them, I fell even more in love with this Psalm.
Verse 5, in particular, caught my attention. In the NIV, it reads:
"Who satisfies your desires with good things
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."
I like to read it:
Who satisfies my desires with good things
So that my youth is renewed like the eagle's.
I've lived much of my life being afraid of my desires - trying to control them and push them down inside, like garbage in an overflowing wastebasket. It wasn't until, about 6 years ago, I began to see how God could (intends to!) use my desires to guide me and give me an abundant life. I started to see my desires as little diamond-studded signposts, guiding the way to where my true heart could intersect with God Himself. Instead of fighting for control over my desires, I found freedom in seeing them as guiding lights. I began bringing my desires to God, asking him to show me what they were trying to tell me. And this verse - this reference to my desires being satisfied, thrilled me. Because I had come to realize that it's not my desires that are evil or harmful. What brings discord and loss to my life is the attempt to satisfy my desires with the wrong things. And right here, at the beginning of Psalm 103, God assures me that I'm not responsible for changing or stuffing down my desires. But he promises to satisfy them with things that are good. Healthy, lovely, helpful things. And this has given me a level of peace that I hadn't before experienced. Each time I found myself leaning toward something that I knew was sinful or harmful, I asked myself, "What is the root of this desire? What is it I really want that I'm trying to satisfy with what is evil?" And then I would bring that root desire to God, asking him to satisfy it with something holy and good. The answer was never instant or miraculous in an outward way. But, slowly, as I continued to bring my desires to God, I found I was changing. My heart began to find satisfaction in wholesome and beautiful ways. And the slow miracle of God's goodness began to become seedlings in the soil of my heart.
And I thought that was enough. But the verse doesn't end there. It promises that my youth (or strength) will be renewed like the eagle's. I wanted to know what the psalmist was saying here. It is very poetic, but I believed there was more than poetry here. I began to read commentaries and looked closely at the words in this verse. One thing I discovered was that the word "eagle" here could also be translated as "vulture." And, actually, the vulture has been revered in many cultures. While we, in the west, honour the eagle as a powerful bird that rides the wind and self-sufficiently kills what it needs for food, many other cultures have admired the vulture's ability to "eat death" and receive life from what would kill others. Vultures actually perform an essential service to this earth. The vulture will eat carcasses of animals who have died from disease. They are able to receive nourishment from diseased bodies of animals that have succumbed to death without being susceptible to the disease themselves. This prevents the disease from being spread to other animals that would eat it, or from having the bacteria spread into the water as the diseased animal decomposes.
I wondered on this for a long time. And then, as God began to bring life from the "death" in my life, I realized the powerful intention of this promise. God is telling me in this, my now-favourite verse, that he will give me strength and nourishment from the death in my life. I can live without fear of evil that comes my way because God is only going to use as food for me anyway. The vulture is a powerful picture of the way that God makes us immune to the disease and death that surrounds us - instead giving us life as a result of death.
And so, this verse now reads for me like this:
Who satisfies my desires with good things
So that my strength is renewed like the vulture's.
And this two-fold promise makes me fearless in the midst of fear.
Yes, like the vulture, I am learning how to "eat death" and receive nourishment from what would have killed me in the past. Things that should spread disease and infect my life with sickness, are now being redeemed by the One who promises to renew my strength like the vulture's.
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