“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: 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 seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 NIV).

All of us have secret ambitions. Things we would like to do or accomplish. At times we may even find ourselves daydreaming over them. Generally those dreams have to do with recognition and fame. What a surprise then to find the king of Israel daydreaming about being able to spend all of his days in temple service! Look at our text again. David isn’t praying about eternity, he is praying about his life today. How do we know that? The qualifying phrase that his desire is to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” The king of Israel daydreams about being a priest in Israel! Amazing. I want to make two very different applications of this verse. We’ll look at the first today and the second tomorrow.

Amazing that the king of Israel above all else desires to be in the place of worship. We see this throughout his writings. “I love the house where you live, O Lord, the place where your glory dwells.” (Psalm 26:8 NIV). “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord.’” (Psalm 122:1 NKJV). Most of us daydream in church hoping to get out as soon as possible. David daydreamed about church, desiring to get in as soon as possible! Do you see the disparity here?

When you attend the house of worship (and I assume you do), what is your attitude? Are you like David and can’t wait to get there? Or are you like the hordes of people who attend out of a sense of obligation and you can’t wait to get out of there?

Now you know I have to ask this: what makes the difference? Focus. If we attend the worship service with our focus on ourselves (what we would rather be doing, wondering if “I’m going to get anything out of this?” etc.,) then the service, no matter how short, will seem interminably long. On the other hand, if our focus is where it should be, on God, then like David, we will find ourselves thinking we can never get enough.