"One Thing I Ask"

I am reading through the Bible chronologically right now. I am currently reading about David's trials and persecution under King Saul. It is very refreshing to read some of the Psalms that David wrote after reading about the context in which they were written.

David was basically a fugitive in 1 Samuel 20-24. Saul had sent men to ambush him at his home, so he took off and wandered around, living in caves and hiding from Saul. He had no home and no food; he had to ask a priest for consecrated bread. David was real in the midst of these trials; it is obvious that he was upset and hurt by his trial. However, David's desires in the midst of this trial absolutely floors me. He could ask for restoration to his home and his wife. He could ask for peace between himself and Saul. But this is what David requests: "One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple...I would have despaired unless I had believed that I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 27:4,13). These verses really affected me as I read them this week.

David was not saying these words in some state of royalty and ease, but in one of desperation, loneliness, and poverty. It could be so easy for Him to have just said, "God, I just want this trial to stop. Please restore me to my home. Let me have something to eat. Enough is enough." No, David asked for God's presence and goodness, and he had unwavering confidence that he would experience that "goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

There are so many things that I find myself asking the Lord for over and over again: a job, financial security, the joy of bringing my son home from the hospital for the first time, and many other things that are not bad in and of themselves. I don't have anyone trying to kill me, and I am not having to live my life in hiding as David did. I wish that we all could have the heart of David, having only one object worthy of our ambitions and pursuits, the God of immeasurable beauty within whose "presence is fullness of joy." Those other things, even the joy of looking at my precious little boy as he sleeps in my arms, cannot give such joy. But, they can be enjoyed all the more when God is our everything and His gifts, like Jonathan Edwards said, are like the "beams" of "the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow" (James 1:17b).