The One Thing I Want Most

Men were telling lies about David,
the kind of lies that can get a man killed.
His enemies came at him like hungry animals,
and he knew what it was to see an army
camped in the hills.

So David picked up his harp,
and the first thing he sang about
was God.

"The LORD is my light.
He is the one who saves me.
So who is there to be afraid of?
The LORD is my fortress.
Who could make me shake?"

Then he sang about his enemies,
and it did not go well for them.

"When wicked men rush in to eat me up,
they trip, and down they go!
Even if a whole army camps around me,
my heart will not be afraid."

(It is hard to be scary
when you are lying face down in the dirt.)

Then David sang the one thing
he wanted most of all.

"I have asked the LORD for one thing,
and I will keep on asking:
to live in the LORD's house
every day of my life,
to look and look at how beautiful he is,
and to ask him things there in his house."

In those days God's house was a tent.
David had danced in the street
on the day God's golden box, the ark,
came up into Jerusalem,
and he had set up a tent to keep it in.

"When trouble comes, he will hide me in his tent.
He will set me high up on a rock,
above my enemies' heads.
And there I will shout for joy,
and sing and sing to the LORD!"

Then David stopped singing about the LORD
and started crying out to him.

"Hear me, LORD, when I call!
Be kind to me and answer!
You told me, 'Come, look for my face.'
And my heart says, 'LORD, I am looking.'
Don't hide your face from me.
Don't turn me away.
Even if my father and mother leave me,
the LORD will take me in."

The song was nearly over,
and the liars were still out there.
David sang the last part anyway:

"I am sure of this:
I will see how good the LORD is
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD.
Be strong, and let your heart be brave.
Wait for the LORD."

(The land of the living means right here in this life,
while David was still alive to see it.)

But David could only visit God's tent.
He could never live in it.
And no one, not even a king,
could look at God's face and live.
Even that tent was only for a while.
Later David's son Solomon built God a house of stone and gold,
and one day
an enemy army burned it down.

God's people kept asking for David's one thing.
Then God's own Son was born as a baby
and grew up into a man
that anyone could walk right up to
and look in the face.

In the village of Bethany,
Mary sat at his feet and listened
while her sister Martha rushed around with the cooking.
"Martha, Martha," he said,
"only one thing is needed.
Mary has chosen it,
and no one will take it away from her."

David's one thing was happening on the floor of a house in Bethany.
Mary was looking up at Jesus.