What Is Your One Desire?

By Sloan Milliken

During one of the sessions at the KRC mini-retreat this March, the speaker briefly mentioned Psalm 27:4. Something about it intrigued me, and as she continued talking, I found myself daydreaming about the scripture. So, sitting there in the middle of the session, I opened a Bible app on my phone and looked up the Hebrew. What I discovered stunned me.

Psalm 27:4 was David’s heart cry, his life ambition, his one desire. In the midst of all his troubles, he was so confident that he had a place in God’s heart that he joyously proclaimed, “One thing I have 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, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” King David lived his life to be in the presence of the Lord so that he could experience him and fellowship with him.

That day in the conference room, the phrase “to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD” particularly stuck out to me. Here is what I learned—while the word “gaze” in the Hebrew does mean “to look at” with your natural eyes, throughout the scriptures it has a strong connotation of prophetic revelation.

For example, several of the prophetic books open by saying something like, “this is the vision that such and such prophet saw.” The Hebrew word for “saw” is the same word as David’s “gaze.”

I share all that to say this—I am getting stirred in the depths of my soul to do more than just believe right things about God. Like never before, I want to live in God’s presence and encounter Jesus by the Spirit. I want to behold him in all of the beauty of his character—in his kindness, grace, joy, intensity, and love. I want to see the resurrected God-man, his being ablaze with love as he sits at the right hand of our Father.

David discovered that he could posture his daily life around the pursuit of seeing Jesus for who he really is. He didn’t settle for living a life that experienced God once in a blue moon. Because he asked, sought, and knocked, daily encounter was his portion. It can be ours, too, if we will do the same!

Many Blessings,
Sloan Milliken