One Thing I Ask

The one thing I ask of the Lord—

    the thing I seek most—

is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

    delighting in the Lord’s perfections

    and meditating in his Temple.

Psalm 27:4 (WEB)

I recall a time when I was speaking to a group of students about what heaven might be like. One of them thought it would be like a perpetual praise service, with unending worship, music and dancing. Another student thought that sounded more like torture than paradise!

In this verse from the Psalms, King David is making a request. He does not ask for gold or silver, victory in battle nor wives and children. Instead, he requests that he might live in the house of the Lord all the days of his life.

Does that sound like something you would want?

Sometimes we are guilty of wanting the gifts more than the Giver, and for seeking God’s presents instead of His presence. The Lord Himself is our reward though, and far greater than any gift we could want.

The psalm points out two things we might do in His presence.

The first is to delight! Delight is a wonderful word, and means to have a “high degree of pleasure or enjoyment.” That sounds like something we want to do more of! Delighting in what though? In the Lord’s perfections. We might think of this as delighting in God’s character or attributes.

God is an infinite God, with wonders beyond measure. A day dwelling on who He is and enjoying His character is a day well spent in my book. How often do you set aside time to do nothing else but simply enjoy the Lord?

The second thing is meditation. Meditation is not emptying one’s mind of thought, but instead it is filling it with the wonders of God and His Word. It is said that meditation is like rumination, which is the action of a cow chewing the grass over and over again. When we meditate on God, we are deploying our thinking on all the goodness of His character and ways.

To meditate on the Lord is, I believe, to begin to delight in Him also. One leads to the other. The more we meditate, the more delighted we become, and the more delighted we are, the more we want to dwell on who He is.

Paul says, in Philippians:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

You need not think about everything that pops into your head, but can direct your thoughts on to Jesus.

You need not #think about everything that pops into your head, but can direct your thoughts on to #Jesus. #Bible

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Set aside some time when you can, even if it is just fifteen minutes, and delight yourself in the Lord. Make a list of all the good things He has done for you, and note down the aspects of His character which most excite you. It will be time well spent indeed!

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For more thoughts on Philippians 4:8, check out my post – Pure vs OK