You have endowed him with eternal blessings and given him the joy of your presence.

Psalm 21:6

Psalm 21 focuses on the king of Israel. It celebrates many ways God has blessed the king and his leadership. Verse 6 declares, “You have endowed him with eternal blessings and given him the joy of your presence.” The Hebrew of this verse refers, literally, to the joy of God’s faces. This doesn’t mean God has many literal faces, of course. But it does convey the sense of God’s presence with a gripping, intimate image.

Have you ever seen a baby watch the face of her mother? I think of when my daughter, Kara, was tiny, how she’d focus on my wife’s face. It was as if she could stare at Linda for hours and hours. This face signified safety, nourishment, warmth, and tenderness. When Linda smiled at Kara, sometimes Kara would offer back a huge grin. She knew the joy of her mother’s “faces.”

God wants us to know him in this way. Though we won’t get to see him literally face-to-face until the age to come (1 Cor. 13:12), we can experience his “faces” even now. God’s presence is revealed to us when we gather with his people for worship or when we take time alone for prayer. But God is also present with us when we’re sitting in a boardroom or teaching a class. Sometimes we see God's face through the actions of a colleague or the words of a student. As we grow in our faith, we'll become more aware of God's "faces" in each and every moment of our life, and we’ll learn to enjoy his presence wherever we are.

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER REFLECTION: When do you experience God’s presence most powerfully? Have you ever sensed God’s presence in unexpected places? When? How did this make you feel? 

PRAYER: O Lord, thank you for the many times that you have made your presence known to me, breaking through my spiritual blindness so that I might see you. Thank you for filling my heart with the sublime joy of being with you.

Dear Lord, I know that you are present with me at all times. Thank you for this sweet gift. I ask that you help me to attend to your presence, to see you in unexpected places, to hear the still, small voice of your Spirit. Help me especially to sense your presence in places I think of as “secular” or “unspiritual.” May I live each moment with the assurance and joy that comes from being with you. Amen.