The One Thing I Want Most

(from Psalm 27)

Do you know what it feels like
to want one thing
more than anything else?

David knew.

He had so much.
A crown, a harp, brave friends.
But there was one thing
he wanted most of all.

Listen to him sing it:

"There is one thing I ask.
One thing I keep looking for.
Here is my heart, wide open:
I want to live in God's house.
All my days. Every one.
I want to stay close,
and look at how beautiful he is,
and never have to leave."

David had been afraid.
Enemies came. The nights got dark.
Sometimes he felt so alone
his heart pounded like running feet.

And in the dark he whispered
the thing he believed
all the way down:

"God is my light.
So who do I have to fear?
God is the safe place I run to.
So why would I shake?"

Even if his own mother and father
walked away and forgot him,
and oh, that is the loneliest thing,
to be forgotten by the ones
who are supposed to hold you,
even then,
David said,
"God will gather me up.
God will keep me.
God will not leave me out in the cold."

What David wanted was a home.
A forever home,
where God himself was right there,
where David could see his face,
where nobody could ever come and take it away.

He had sung it once before,
at the end of his shepherd song:
"I will live in the house of the Lord
forever."
The want kept coming back,
because God had put it inside him.
He put it inside you, too.

That tug you feel sometimes,
that wish to stay where it is warm,
that longing for a place that is yours
and safe
and never ends:
that is your heart
reaching for the home God is making.

David could only hum the melody.
One day a Son would come
who looked his friends in the eyes
and told them:

"I am going on ahead
to make the rooms ready.
My Father's house has plenty of room.
And I am coming back for you,
so that where I am,
you will be too."

A house with room for everyone.
A door that stays open.
A Father at the table
who will not begin the feast
until every one of his children
is home, and counted, and held.

And there you will do
the very thing David wanted most.
You will see how beautiful God is.
Face to face.
And you will never,
ever
have to leave.

So when the night feels long,
whisper what David whispered:
be brave, little heart.
Wait for him.

He is setting a place at the table
with your name on it,
and he is keeping it for you
until you walk through the open door.