Here’s some encouragement from John Piper to learn from the Psalmist:
Get inside this man’s heart now and learn from him to do what he is doing. This is how you learn from the saints who have walked with God a long time and know him well. His prayer takes him through four stages.
Stage One: Praying for Spiritual Light and Truth
First in verse 3: “Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me.” He confesses that he needs God to lead him. Why? Because he is in the dark. He knows he is in the dark because his heart is divided. God is his refuge, but he feels forsaken. He feels rejected. And he knows better. God does not reject those who take refuge in him. “He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 18:30). But he can’t help himself. That’s how he feels.
O how many people come to me for prayer pointing to their head and say, “I know that God is true. I know that he loves me. I know that promises never to leave me or forsake me.” And then they point to their heart, and say, “But I don’t feel it.” That’s what this man is experiencing. God is his refuge objectively. But subjectively he feels rejected and forsaken.
He knows the cause of this is darkness. He is spiritually blind to something. So the first stage of his prayer is for light and truth. This is the way Paul prayed for us, in Ephesians 1:18, “[May] the eyes of your hearts [be] enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.” The eyes of the heart—remember where the people were pointing when they could not feel the wonders they knew—the eyes of the heart need light. Spiritual light. Light from God.
He is praying for spiritual light. It’s not physical light. Physical light helps physical eyes see physical reality. Spiritual light lets spiritual eyes—the eyes of the heart—see spiritual reality. And see it for what it is, namely, beautiful. So he is praying that God would rescue him not from his enemies but from a far more dangerous enemy: a darkness that causes the world to look much more attractive than it is and causes the greatness and beauty of God to fade out of sight.
O God, he prays, send me light. And I think he adds “truth” because this is what you see when light comes. Truth is what’s real, what’s substantial. Send light to my soul. Let me see the true substance and reality of things. O God, banish illusions from my heart. Not just intellectual illusions from my head, but emotional illusions from my heart.
Stage Two: Coming to the Altar of God
The second stage of his prayer is that by this light and truth God would bring him to God’s holy dwelling—the sanctuary and the altar of God. Verse 3b-4a: “Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God.” Now the altar is the place where the blood of the animal sacrifice was sprinkled to make atonement for the people and where God forgave the sins of his people. In other words, the light of God leads him to the truth of his sinfulness and takes him to the place of atonement and forgiveness.
On this side of the cross of Jesus Christ today we know where the altar of God is. It’s not in the temple. It’s not in any house made with hands. Hebrews 13:10 says, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.” Our altar is Jesus Christ crucified and risen and standing before the throne of God. “Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea”—Christ our High Priest, our sacrifice, our altar.
The light of God that leads us is today “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). The light of the gospel leads us to Christ, to the altar, to the cross. And there our hearts are further illumined to see our sin and our wonderful forgiveness.
Stage Three: Experiencing God as Exceeding Joy
Then, the third stage of his prayer is that this light and truth would lead him to God as his exceeding joy. Verse 4: “Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” The final goal of life is not forgiveness or any of God’s good gifts. The final goal of life is God himself, experienced as your exceeding joy. Or very literally from the Hebrew, “God, the gladness of my rejoicing.” That is, God, who in all my rejoicing over all the good things that he had made, is himself, in all my rejoicing, the heart of my joy, the gladness of my joy. Every joy that does not have God as the central gladness of the joy is a hollow joy and in the end will burse like a bubble.
Isn’t this amazing! Here is man threatened by enemies and feeling danger from his adversaries, and yet he knows that the ultimate battle of his life is not the defeat of his enemies, it is not escaping natural catastrophe, it is not being healed from cancer. The ultimate battle is: Will God be his exceeding joy? Will God be the gladness at the heart of all his joys?
Stage Four: Expressing This Joy in God
And the final stage of his prayer is that this light and truth would lead him to express this joy that he feels in God. Verse 4 at the end: “And I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.” Authentic joy in God will overflow with praises. In fact, as C. S. Lewis says in his book on the Psalms, “we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.”1 It’s not wrong to say, “We were made for God.” It’s not wrong to say, “We were made for joy.” It’s not wrong to say, “We were made to praise.” But it is more fully true to say, “We were made to enjoy God with overflowing praise.” This is the ultimate goal of life.
Now mark this: we have been describing the prayer of a divided heart. The psalmist would like to know a constant uninterrupted experience of God as his exceeding joy. But in reality there are times when he feels forsaken. He knows in his head that God has not forsaken him. But it feels like he has. So his deepest strategy to escape this most dangerous condition is to pray, “Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.”
Knowing God through His Word ... Day by Day 