Redemptive Ramblings

Last week, I wrote about my journey to rediscover the goodness of God. God has led me through Psalm 27 in the past week, verse by verse, like a textbook on God’s goodness and His grace for hardships. So this week, I want to talk you through what I’m learning.

Psalm 27:1-3
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.

In these verses, we can see that David has some pretty big problems: the wicked want to devour him, an entire army is coming against him, warlike enemies are camped around him. But he doesn’t start the Psalm there. He begins by looking at God. If we focus on the troubles in life, we will lose confidence in God. Jesus warned us that we would have troubles (John 16:33), so we shouldn’t be surprised when hard things happen. But the only way we retain our confidence in those moments is to fix our eyes on Christ.

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.

At first glance, this verse looks wildly disconnected from what came before it, but it isn’t. David is giving us the key to keeping our confidence in God. We need to stay focused on the beauty of the Lord. He doesn’t ask if he can visit the Temple. He wants to live there! If we focus on the face of God, we will keep believing in His goodness. We won’t be fearful of what He may allow in our lives. We won’t be looking at our circumstances so much that we forget His true nature.

Psalm 27:5-6
For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

Joy and praise come from intimacy with God, not an absence of trouble. But in the time of trouble, He offers the greatest intimacy! Here, David is talking about being hidden by God, being brought to His secret places. God uses our hard times to pull us in closer to Himself.
David is talking about offering praise while the trouble is still all around him. The sacrifices of joy aren’t physical sacrifices anymore. Sometimes, seeking joy feels like a sacrifice. Sometimes we want to wallow in our misery. Those are the times that God calls us to offer a sacrifice of joy.

Psalm 27:7-8
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

Seeking God’s face isn’t the same as seeking His provision, His will, His directions, His protection, His mercy, His wisdom, or His blessing. Seeking God’s face is enjoying Him only for Himself, not for any other thing that He can do. How long has it been since you just enjoyed God’s presence like you enjoy being with your best friend? Just like you don’t go to the person you love most only if you need advice or help, God wants us to go to Him even when we don’t need anything, just to enjoy being with Him.

Psalm 27:9-10
Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.

Here, David is acknowledging his desperate need for God, as well as God’s overwhelming faithfulness. Earlier in Psalm 27, David uses the Hebrew word Adonai, meaning Lord or master, when he’s talking about God, and saves Lord (YHWH) for when he’s directly addressing God. This time, however, he uses YHWH when talking about God never abandoning him. YHWH is God’s personal, covenant name, and David uses it here to emphasize God’s personal covenant faithfulness. The change in his perspective sticks, though, and for the rest of the Psalm, he refers to God using His personal name for Himself, YHWH. In our seeking God’s face, our desperation for His presence, we will find Him faithful to be so near, so personal to our hearts.

Psalm 27:11-13
Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

Enemies just keep coming at David. Armies of evildoers are trying to kill him, and if that’s not enough, now they’re telling lies about him. And it’s starting to get to him, right? Because here he almost loses heart. The thing that saves him is his belief that he will see God’s goodness even here on Earth.

I was talking to someone from church about this concept last night, and he said, “You know, I don’t know what I believe about God wanting us to be happy. We think of God as our Father, and as a dad, I have to sometimes make choices that I know will make my child unhappy. But it’s for their own good.”

But God isn’t like us. I can’t make my child happy with my presence. The beauty of my face, either physical or metaphorical, isn’t enough to inspire a disgruntled daughter or a sulky son to sing praises. But God is all of those things! His presence can bring me to my knees in joy and wonder regardless of my circumstances if I dedicate my heart to focus on Him.

Psalm 27:14
Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!

God isn’t fast, y’all! David makes a point of saying here that reliance on God and focusing on Him will entail waiting. So much waiting, in fact, that he mentions it twice in one verse. But waiting on God means we never stop believing, hoping, and trusting that we will see His face, bask in His goodness, and enjoy His presence on Earth as well as in Heaven.