Psalm 43:3,4 – With Him

As usual, here is my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³Send forth Your light and Your truth. Let them guide me. Let them bring me to the mountain of Your holiness and to Your dwelling places, ⁴and I will come in to the altar of God, to God the joy of my rejoicing, and I will praise You with a lyre, God my God.

In my last post I noted how the Psalmist here desired to be in God’s presence. Verse 4 adds, “And I will come in to the altar of God …” Once again, note that the context of this psalm is trouble. Yet, while the psalmist wants the trouble to end, it makes his heart long for God’s presence.

It is interesting to me to realize that first of all God wants to be in our presence. He wants us with Him. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2,3). “…that you also may be where I am”-- There is no question Biblically speaking whether God wants to be with us. The question is whether we want to be with Him! In a sad sense, hell is God giving people what they wanted all along – to get away from Him. Thankfully, a believing heart has been redeemed from such eternally fatal foolishness. But still, the business of “practicing God’s presence,” of deliberately seeking His presence, is a learning process. What trouble does is jumpstart that business. As long as this world is all pleasant and wonderful, we can simply leave God out. When someone throws us in a lion’s den or a fiery furnace, all of sudden it is easier to treasure God’s presence! But I would suggest that maturity is to learn to value His presence whether in trouble or not. Maturity is desiring to be with Him constantly. He wants to be with us. Maturity is when we begin more and more to want to be with Him.

It is interesting to note in verse 4, the name God is used four times. There’s certainly no question where is this psalmist’s focus!

It is also interesting to note how he sees God. He calls Him, “the joy of my rejoicing.” The Hebrew here uses two words that are different yet very close synonyms. You could translate it, “joy of my joy” or “rejoicing of my rejoicing,” “delight of my delight,” or any combination thereof. I think we get the picture! He has grown spiritually to the point where it really is true that God is a delight to him. Once again, it is Biblically apparent that God delights in us: “The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing” (Zeph 3:17). Zephaniah uses the same two Hebrew words which occur in our passage. It is simply a fact, the Lord delights in us. The only question is whether we delight in Him! As soon as we do, the feelings are mutual. And that is exactly the relationship He intended from the beginning.

As with Adam and Eve, sin clouds that relationship. Our sins and our sinful nature leave us with a twisted view of God, seeing Him in some way as sinister or threatening or disinterested. But as we allow the blood of Jesus to wash those sins, as we hear Him calling to us to come boldly before the Throne of Grace, as we feed on His words and grow to truly know Him, we find Him everything our hearts ever desired. We find Him to be the “the joy of our rejoicing.”

One sad interjection here is to note that when we allow legalism to be our sanctification, it also clouds our view of God. Just as with the Pharisees, we may make up rules which appear very religious, which appeal to the others in our group, and which allow us to feel we’ve attained quite a level of spirituality. The problem is they’re not God’s rules. They’re not His truth. When we believe they came from Him we think they reflect Who He is. But He isn’t. He is YHVH, “I am that I am.” He is who He is and any other view of Him is simply in error. Legalism eclipses the face of God. The only hope is to diligently read and study and and let the Bible say what it says. Let it tell us Who God is, what He’s like, and what in fact He expects from us. When Jesus was here, He spoke to some of the most legalistic people who ever lived and said, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I would suggest His “rest” comes from truly knowing Him for who He really is – this God who delights in us and Whom we will also find a delight to us, the more we truly know Him.

The key is to be “with Him.” He is with us. He said He’d never leave us. The only question is whether we’re with Him. To see Him as our psalmist sees Him, as the joy of our rejoicing, is the privilege and the end of a believing heart. In fact, Heaven itself will be the consummation of such a relationship here on earth. There we’ll forever be with Him, delighting in Him as He delights in us.

Here on earth, our adversities move us to desire His presence. Here in our psalm, the writer’s affliction moves Him to desire God’s dwelling place and His altar. But may the relationship we find there continue on, even after “these calamities pass by”.

Isn’t it great we can enjoy such a relationship now? Lord help us know You better and better and may it be true that whether in adversity or not we find in You “the joy of our rejoicing.”