Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: May 12th

GUESTS OF GOD

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. - Psalms 27:4

"One thing have I desired , . . . that will I seek after. " There are two points to be kept in view to that end. A great many people say, "One thing have I desired," and fail in persistent continuousness of the desire. No man gets rights of residence in God’s house for a longer time than he continues to seek for them. The most advanced of us, and those that have longest been like Anna, who "departed not from the temple " day nor night, will certainly eject ourselves, unless, like the Psalmist, we use the verbs in both tenses, and say, "One thing have I desired, . . . that will I seek after." John Bunyan saw that there was a back door to the lower regions close by the gates of the Celestial City. There may be men who have long lived beneath the shadow of the sanctuary, and at the last shall be found outside the gates.

But the words not only suggest by the two tenses of the verbs the continuity of the desire which is destined to be granted, but also by the two verbs themselves - desire and seek after - the necessity of uniting prayer and work. Many desires are unsatisfied because conduct does not correspond to desires. Many a prayer for greater holiness and closer communion with God remains unanswered because its pray-ers never do a thing to fulfill their prayers. I do not say they are hypocrites; certainly they are not consciously so, but I do say that there is a large measure of conventionality that means nothing in the prayers of average Christian people for more holiness and likeness to Jesus Christ.

If we want this desire of dwelling in the house of the Lord to be fulfilled, the day’s work must run in the same direction as the morning’s petition, and we must, like the Psalmist, say, " I have desired it of the Lord, and I, for my part, will seek after it.’ Then, whether or not we reach absolutely to the standard, which is none the less to be aimed at, though it seems beyond reach, we shall draw nearer and nearer to it, and, God helping our weakness and increasing our strength, quickening us to " desire," and upholding us to " seek after," we may hope that, when the days of our life are past, we shall but remove into an upper chamber, more open to the sunrise and flooded with light, and shall go no more out, but " dwell in the house of the Lord for ever."