One Thing

Psalm 27:4 - One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I 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 inquire in His temple. (NKJV)

 I was working on memorizing Psalm 27 recently and one night while reciting and meditating on it, the Lord stopped me in my tracks with one phrase from verse 4: “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek…”

“One thing I have desired…” Just one. Not two, not many things, one thing. Then the question came, “Daughter, what one thing do you desire of Me?”

I have had experience many times of my heart being “smote” and it happened again in this moment. I knew in an instant that my “one thing” was not purely what David’s was, that is, “…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 inquire in His temple.” In other words, David’s “one thing” was simply to walk in deep fellowship with God. That was all he wanted, and nothing else mattered. Of course, it’s not like I didn’t want that, but I realized that yet again, I desired something else a little more than God Himself.

Idolatry is incredibly subtle. It sneaks its way into our hearts, often simply taking a good thing and loving it just a little too much. It takes over our attention and thoughts, it makes us excited and passionate… but it’s not HIM. And anything that comes between us and God is sinful.

In the Old Testament, God did not dwell with His people as He does now. In order to be in God’s presence you had to go to the Temple. But now, we have the Spirit of God living in us. But just because we have the amazing blessing of God living in us does not mean we have practical fellowship with Him. To have fellowship is to have a close relationship. With God it involves a renouncing of other “lovers” and a dependence solely on Him. Just like any other relationship it takes effort and time, but we easily get distracted by other things. To walk in fellowship with God means a daily (more like hourly) commitment to pursuing that relationship first and foremost. But it's worth it, for He is infinitely better than anything else we could desire.

May this be our daily prayer...

One thing I have earnestly desired of You, Lord, and that I will seek and pursue: That I may truly live and walk in Your presence all the days of my life, to behold more and more of Your beauty and great worth and to walk in close fellowship with You.