In the Lord I Take Refuge: 31 Days in the PsalmsSample

What else do you need in life beyond the truths of Psalm 27?

Fears press in on David (vv. 1, 3). Such is life. Who among us does not know what it is to wake up in the morning and, as consciousness slides over us once more, feel clutching at our hearts the pressing anxieties and fears of the day ahead? This is normal. This is life.

Consider the words of this psalm. Read them slowly. Drink them in. If the Lord is your light and salvation, of whom will you be afraid (v. 1)? Even if your own parents forsake you, the Lord will take you in (v. 10). And note David’s single longing, the “one thing” he has asked: to dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (v. 4).

Have you tasted this? Is the Lord beautiful to you? What is the beauty of God? It is his brilliance, radiance, and sun-like shining forth in who he is for sinners. And in Jesus, we see the ultimate embodiment of the beauty of God. Jonathan Edwards put it this way:

Christ has infinite loveliness to win and draw our love. He is more excellent than the angels of heaven. . . . In beholding his beauty, the angels do day and night entertain and feast their souls and in celebrating of it do they continually employ their praises. Nor yet have the songs of angels ever declared all the excellency of Jesus Christ, for it is beyond their songs and beyond the thoughts of those bright intelligences to reach it.

Our hearts are hungry for beauty. In Jesus Christ, we see the face of God, just as David longed to see the face of God (vv. 8–9). See him in the Gospels and all of Scripture—commune with him. Adore him. He is the deepest longing of our hearts.