God lives in an environment of eternal pleasures. He gives eternal pleasures in copious measure and He Himself is the Eternal Pleasure. David says in Psalm 16:11, “…you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” You may be tempted to conclude that this eternal joy and pleasure is only something God gives. In the psalm however, you mustn’t fail to notice that it is God Himself who is the epitome of those eternal pleasures and beauty.

Verse 2 is the most direct statement of this fact. “…apart from you I have no good thing.” You may remember that I pointed out early in this series that the word good embraces the concept of beauty. Surely David is not saying here that nothing around him is beautiful except the Lord. Surely he still sees beauty in his wives and daughters. He was still able to see and want the beauty of Bathsheba. He sees the beauty of morality and godliness. Rather, we should hear David saying that the beauty of God is the ultimate, final, consuming, satisfying beauty, in contrast to all of the other sample beauties he sees in God’s creation. Every beauty he sees is suggestive of the real, lasting beauty of God Himself. David sees this beauty in a Person—the Person of the LORD.

In this vein, verses 7 and 8 are so satisfying. As David gazes at the beauty of the LORD, the LORD is constantly counselling him. The reminder is continually coming to him that God is so completely satisfying and sufficient that he really needs nothing else. As he walks through this life, his eyes rest on many beauties that are out of his reach, yet he contents himself with the fact that he really does have the ultimate beauty in his God. It is because he has this breathtaking God deliberately set before his eyes all the time, that he will not be shaken.

An incident from the life of David himself may be helpful to illustrate the point I am making. As it often happens with young people, in 2 Samuel 13:1-2, Amnon, David’s son becomes consumed with lust for his own sister. The fact is that she really was outstandingly beautiful. Amnon sees her beauty and works himself up to the point of explosion because he wants a closer experience of her beauty. He wants more. What he does is shocking. He is so consumed by what he wants that he will sin against God, his family and even the beautiful object of his desire in order to gain a more intimate experience with her. The thought of letting such beauty slip by unclaimed was absurd.