What Do I Want? A Reflection on Psalm 27.4

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  One thing I asked of the Lord,

    that will I seek after:
to live 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. Psalm 27.4 NRSV



  I have asked one thing from the Lord—

    it’s all I seek:
        to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life,
        seeing the Lord’s beauty
        and constantly adoring his temple. Psalm 27.4 CEB


Beauty. More specifically, the beauty of the Lord. Is that what I want? 

We get glimpses throughout the Bible where we are faced with the question, What's the one thing you want from God? The first words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are, What do you want (John 1.38)? 

Solomon asked for wisdom (1 Kings 3.1-15). 

David asked to behold the beauty of the LORD. 

So often I come to God as a means to an end. God is instrumental: he enables, he empowers, he helps, he delivers, he provides something I need, etc. 

When is the last time I have come to him for the sole purpose beholding his beauty? 

God is beautiful--and I don't behold or contemplate that beauty enough. 

And how do we see the beauty of the invisible God? 

The parallel stanza in verse 4 suggests that to see God's beauty is to inquire in his temple. We now know that this temple is the body of Christ. Want to see God's beauty? Look for it in the body of Christ, the people that are being formed by the Spirit. Look for it in their stories, in the ways in which God works beauty in and through them, with one another. 

But Genesis and the Psalms also remind us that creation is God's temple through which he mediates his beauty. God's identity as Father, Son, and Spirit, teach us that creation, including the making of the human, is an extravagant, gratuitous gift of overflowing love and generosity intended to be enjoyed. 

Beauty. 

God's beauty is all around us, if we have eyes to see, if we want to see it. 

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