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, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.
Psalm 27:4
This is David’s heart for God. This is David’s passion for God.
Lord, this is the one thing I long for, the one thing I yearn for. More than anything else, more than everything else, I want you. Lord, may I be with you. May I gaze at you. May I draw close to you.
David had this enormous passion for God and so David longed to meet with God, to be with God.
Take time with God. Take plenty of time with God. Take unhurried time with God. Take unhurried time with God daily.
Why should believers do this? This is why I do it. Firstly, I want to. I love getting alone with the Lord and drawing close. It’s the highlight of my day. It’s the highest privilege of my life.
Second, God wants it. Whether or not I want to be with God, God wants to be with me! Any parent of a teenager can relate. God wants to be with us because he loves us.
Third, I need it. Desperately. For my sanity, for my emotional health, for my spiritual health, for my soul’s restoration, I need it. Or I will run dry.
Fourth, because the purpose of human life is to know God and love God. And this won’t happen apart from unhurried time with God, daily.
Finally, I need to be changed. I need to be rescued from pride, jealousy, self-centeredness, unbelief, hurry, worry and much more. This won’t happen without plenty of time with God.
A.W. Tozer wrote in his book, The Divine Conquest:
May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the kingdom like children through the market place, chattering about everything but pausing to learn the true value of nothing. In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons. But such wishes are vain – no short cut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste, nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now. The man who would know God must give time to him.
O Lord, stir my heart. Move in my heart. Give me a passion for you. Give me a heart for you. The kind of heart for you that David had. Amen.