The Presence of God – Psalm 27

A text – Psalm 27

Triumphant Song of Confidence.       Of David.

¹ 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?  

⁴ One thing I asked of the Lord; this I seek: to live 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.                                                                                                                                            ⁵ For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.                                                                                                                                                    ⁶ Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.                                                                                                                                               ⁷ Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!
⁸ “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek.
⁹  Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off; do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

A reflection:

“One thing I asked of the Lord; this I seek: to live 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.”

If you could ask only one thing of the Lord, might it not be the safety of your children? The security of a solid home? The love of a wonderful partner? Well, David says in this psalm that the one thing he desires to receive from God is to be forever close to God, no matter what he is doing – to know that at the start and end of the day he can behold the beauty of the Lord.

Jesus told various people, we read in the Gospels, “Only one thing is needful” or “You lack one thing.” He was trying to help them focus, in their whirl of so many things, on the one thing that would give them peace instead of their endless to-do lists. The things on those lists were good, and possibly urgent, but there was only one thing that was important: the presence of God.

Long ago my pastor gave me a book called The Practice of the Presence of God. He said he had just read it and it was changing his days and nights. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (c. 1611–1691), the author, was a lay brother in the Parisian Carmelite Order, which practiced extreme asceticism. He said that one’s “entire call and duty” was “to adore God and to love Him, without worrying about the rest.” As a humble cook, he learned to be in the deep presence of God so well that he was able to joyfully exclaim, “I am doing now what I will do for all eternity. I am blessing God, praising Him, adoring Him, and loving Him with all my heart.”

King David, the writer of this psalm, probably had many things on his to-do list. But his deepest desire, his one request, was to live with God day and night, to be in God’s presence. How do we do that? We could read Brother Lawrence’s instructions for about 50 cents. They’re good! But we could even start every morning by blessing the Lord our God, who created the universe and also who daily delivers to us sleep at night and important things to do every day. Thank God for this slowly and deliberately. Every morning. I believe we will feel God near us. And perhaps like Brother Lawrence, we can worry less about the rest. We would daily feel the presence of God.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for making yourself known and felt to us. Help us to practice your presence as often as we can, so that we can let go of worrying about the rest. Amen.