Few Psalms ring with a greater sense of affection and longing for God than Psalm 27.  Attributed to David, it’s a song of the Messiah. Yet as lofty as that title might sound, David bore the scars of a life marked by conflict.

You can’t experience extensive suffering and remain unaffected.  Sadness, cynicism, anger, lack of confidence, ambivalence towards life and others, hardness. All sorts of outcomes can ensue as trauma and grief attach themselves to the core of our being and rasp away at who we are. As the Stone Temple Pilots’ song “Creep” bluntly puts it: “I’m half the man I used to be.”

Perpetual hostility taught David about the degenerative nature of life in the world. If his life depended on him alone, hopelessness would have consumed him. His frailty, however, inclined his heart all the more towards his God. Who illuminates the darkness of this world and provides a lifeline from death’s clutches? “The Lord is my light and my salvation”. Who in this world can take away what the Lord is to us? What worries can outweigh the certainty of his death defeating power? No one and nothing. With the Lord as his stronghold, David’s confidence was sure, despite his worldly experience.

In hard times, his eyes were fixed on God’s radiant splendour. He yearned, even ached, for his heavenly home. “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.” (27:4-5)

As God’s anointed Messiah, a single-minded vision to rest in the presence of God’s holy perfection characterised David. This same vision characterised Jesus’, the great Son of David. He knew that even the hostile opposition of conspiratorial Jewish leaders and a Roman cross could not prevent him from seeing life through death.

As adopted children of this radiant God, we have the same confidence in his perfection and assurance of his salvation. He is perfect and his promises sure. He has secured a place for us in his presence through the death and resurrection of Jesus. May that be our one true desire, knowing nothing can destroy it.