The Lord is My Light (Psalm 27)
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When you’re afraid, what do you ask God for?
When you wonder… How will I pay the bills? Will my children turn out okay? What if something happens to my spouse? What if I never find a spouse? What if my life doesn’t live up to the dreams I have for it?
When these fears press in on you, what do you ask for? For God to change your circumstances?
King David was a man whose life was shadowed by great peril. His life itself was almost always at risk. When he wasn’t at war with neighboring nations, he was being hunted by his own people. And yet, in Psalm 27, David writes,
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” - Psalm 27:1
While David had much to be afraid of, he claims that he did not fear. We might wonder…why? We find our answer in verse four. In his threatening circumstances, David did not fear because his heart was set on one thing alone:
“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” - Psalm 27:4
David’s circumstances were far from easy. In verse two we read that “evildoers assail him to eat up his flesh.” In verse three we read that “an army encamps against him and war arises against him.” As Charles Spurgeon writes,
“Under David’s painful circumstances we might have expected him to desire repose, safety, and a thousand other good things, but no, he has set his heart on the pearl, and leaves the rest.”
In the face of his looming circumstances, David asks for one thing: to dwell in the presence and glory of God. The desire of David’s heart is to worship in the constant presence of God, something no external circumstance can take away.
Like David, when we set our heart’s desire on being with and worshiping God, we find that our own fears begin to lose their potency. When we ask God to surround us with His presence and show us His glory, we can be certain that the answer is “yes,” regardless of any circumstance.
David concludes the psalm by declaring his confidence that God will answer his prayer.
“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” - Psalm 27:13-14
As those living after Christ, we have access to an even deeper-founded confidence than David. When we pray that we might “dwell in the house of the Lord” and “gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple,” we can remember that we are not the only ones who desire this. Look at the words of Jesus in John 17:24:
“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
We desire the One who desired us first; we seek after the One who has already sought us with a death-defying love. Resting in this assurance, we can set our hearts on the singular desire to be with and worship God, and we can trust that God will satisfy this desire. Setting aside our fears, in confidence, we can declare:
I will sing your praise all the days of my life;
I will seek your face all the days of my life.
