Day Nine: Fearless Trust in God

In the NASB, a really great accurate translation for studying, Psalm 27 has the heading, A Psalm of Fearless Trust in God. How completely superbad is that? Fearless trust. Read it. The whole thing. It's written in the voice of someone with so much bold confidence, of one who is intimate with his Father.

I think a lot of us wish that we could live a life of fearless trust in God. But this psalm shows us the path to it. At my church, last week's message was called One Thing. Verse 4 was one of the places in the Bible that talks about one thing that was used in the message. Our pastor invited us all to seek God for what the one thing was we needed to focus on this year. And this, here in this verse is my one thing. And even though it straight up says "one thing," I think it's easy to miss. I think most people are going to find their one thing for sure, but to me, this psalm holds the key to THE one thing. To living a life of fearless trust in God.

In verse 8 David says, that the Lord invites us to seek His face. God doesn't just want a relationship with us where we always come to Him seeking something from Him. He wants us to seek Him. I'm not trying to contradict the very clear messages that God wants us to make our requests known to Him, to bring Him our burdens, to knock over and over, to cry out for help. But the one thing, the one thing above all, is to seek Him.

So often I think we seek His hand and not His face. As a loving Father, He must long for just the opposite. David, in this very psalm, brought His needs to God. But in the midst of it all, from the bottom of his heart, what he most wanted was to be intimately close to God. And that single-minded, whole-hearted devotion brings about fearless trust. Because at the point that you lose all sight of anything but His face, you can begin to come to terms with that miraculous mystery of His sovereignty gift-wrapped in love that results in the One Thing that is worthy of fearless trust. The One who made you.

Picture this. Imagine approaching a king intending to kiss Him on the hand. Now picture approaching a Father intending to kiss Him on the face. How much closer do you get? Close enough that He then wraps His arms around you and you get His hands too. With the hand, you kneel and take a position of unworthiness to beg for favor. With the face, you know you're welcome to come. You know you have access like that. You know He has granted you His favor.

Our God is both our King and our Father. He is capable of fabulously and overwhelmingly meeting our needs and answering our prayers. But He also loves us more deeply than we can ever really know. He wants us to come to Him. He wants us to know Him. He wants us to seek His face.

Father, I pray that You will beckon each of us during this fast to seek Your face. I pray that those of us who come to you will see you. I pray that we will have confidence that we will see Your goodness in the land of the living, not just when we truly see You face to face on that day. I thank You for hearing us, from never hiding Your face from us. Let us come to You with a fearless trust. Let us seek Your face and not just Your hand.