Would I Choose God?

One thing have I desired 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 behold the beauty of the LORD.... Psalm 27:4

What do I want?

If we could have one thing granted just for today, what would we choose?

Seeing a friend?

An hour to myself?

A happier marriage?

My stress to go away?

More obedient children?

A clean house?

Enough money to pay the bills?

A day off to relax?

The house I've always dreamed of living in?

My head to stop aching?

My schedule to calm down?

One last visit with someone I love?

My dear one's devastating disease to be healed?

The pantry shelves to be organized?

Or would I choose God?

His Presence to overshadow my life and my wants and dreams and hopes and fears and annoyances and needs?

God At My Place? Or Me At His Place?

Psalm 27:4 has been one of my favorite verses for a long time. When I think I want something badly, I often restate the words of the Psalmist: "ONE thing have I desired of the Lord...."

THAT will I seek after.

God.

Knowing Him. Loving Him.

His Worth.

THAT will I seek after. All the days of my life.

The other day I was looking at the verse again, trying to figure out how to paraphrase it for someone after a conversation when I saw something in the rest of the verse.

The Psalmist says that he will seek after the Lord, "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 enquire in His temple."

I've always thought of it as David seeking after his God.

But... wait! There's more.

He's seeking to live in GOD's presence.

He's not seeking the presence of God in HIS life.

He's transplanting his life, his location, to GOD'S presence, where God is.

There's a difference.

Is God with me everywhere, anywhere? Sure! Can I hear His Spirit on a hilltop or in a bustling city street? In church or at work or in the car? Of course!

But so often I pray for the Presence of God in MY life, when what I should be begging for is to live my life in GOD'S PLACE.... to plant myself where He is, rather than to try to add Him to MY life and loves and wishes and places.

In a literal church building? I don't think that's the essence of what David is talking about.

He talks about going to the temple, though.

That meant leaving HIS place (even though God communed with him there often)

and going to GOD'S place.

I've prayed a whole new way this week about several things.

I haven't went anywhere different physically.

But I've asked God to let me live in His presence,

even if that's all that He gives me in life.

Somehow I feel, like David, that if I only want one thing in life it must be this:

To live where God lives and to behold His worth and beauty.

Filling the Heart With Wonder

‎"What is meaning & how do we find it?

What brings meaning is when you can combine a sense of wonder, under-girded by Truth, experiencing the richness of love, along with the knowledge of security.

Those 4 components bring about genuine meaning to life.

The older you get, the more it takes to fill your heart with wonder,

and only God is big enough to fill that heart."

~Ravi Zacharias

Selling Myself for Worthless Bits of Nothing

"Why do you sell yourselves for naught?"

The words of Scripture stopped me in my tracks. I had wanted a quick thought as I went on with my day... and I certainly found a something to think about. It's been incessantly running through my head in recent days.

"Why do you sell yourselves for naught?"

Why?

Why do I?

Why do I trade something of so much value for something so fleeting, so foolish?

Why do people exchange their souls for a glance, a smile, a smooth hand on their shoulder, coarse laughter, a bit of tinsel?

Why have my friends given up what has taken twenty or thirty years to develop in their lives... for nothing?

Why do we value what is worthless?

Why do we shrug at the things that really matter?

Why does my heart crave for the worthless approving glances of those who scorned my Savior?

Why? I don't know. I'm ashamed that I love worthless stuff so much.

But God asks us that question. And then He waits. Heaven is silent.

I think He waits for us to humbly hang our heads and turn to him from our foolish nothingness..

The Making of a Christian Hedonist - John Piper

Once we had no delight in God, and Christ was just a vague historical figure. What we enjoyed was food and friendships and productivity and investments and vacations and hobbies and games and reading and shopping and sex and sports and art and TV and travel... but not God. He was an idea - even a good one - and a topic for discussion; but he was not a treasure of delight.

Then something miraculous happened. It was like the opening of the eyes of the blind during the golden dawn. First the stunned silence before the unspeakable beauty of holiness. Then a shock and terror that we actually loved the darkness. Then the settling stillness that this is the soul's end. The quest is over. We would give anything if we might be granted to live in the presence of this glory for ever and ever.

And then faith - the confidence that Christ has made a way for me, a sinner, to live in his glorious fellowship forever, the confidence that if I come to God through Christ, he will give me the desire of my heart to share his holiness and behold his glory....

Saving faith is the cry of a new creature in Christ. And the newness of the new creature is that it has a new taste. What was once distasteful or bland is now craved. Christ himself has become a Treasure Chest of holy joy. The tree of faith grows only in the heart that craves the supreme gift that Christ died to give: not health, not wealth, not prestige, but God!

"Christ died for sins once for all...that he might bring us to God" (I Peter 3:18)
"Through him we have access in one Spirit to the Father" (Ephesians 2:18)
"Through him we have obtained access to grace...and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God...we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:2, 11)

....Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that he is desirable. It is confidence that he will come through with his promises and that what he promises is more to be desired than all the world.

....Behind the repentance that turns away from sin and behind the faith that embraces Christ is the birth of a new taste, a new longing, a new passion for the pleasure of God's presence. This is the root of conversion. This is the creation of a Christian Hedonist.

Excerpted from John Piper's book,
Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist