To will one thing

This morning Paul and I read Psalm 27 together before I left for work (incidentally, I like reading the Bible together with Paul because different aspects of the passages will stand out to us and then we both get to see more in the words by sharing our thoughts), and I noticed especially verse 4:

"One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple." - Psalm 27:4

 It always challenges me, this verse. (It especially challenges me today as I have been reading a discourse by Kierkegaard on how purity of heart before God consists of willing only one thing - the good - in truth). Do I honestly desire just one thing? Or do I spread my heart thin in the multiplicity of my desires, in the quagmire of double-mindedness? If I truly desired this one thing of the Lord (namely, to know Him), then I could pursue it with my whole heart, with the confidence of faith, turning my eyes from the temporal goods (that are not good because they fade away and perish) that tempt me in order to seek this one eternal and unchanging good. But I think that all too often I don't just will this one thing - I will also for the approval and respect of others, and I will to avoid pain and heartache.

So how ought I to go about correcting the confusion of my mind and the desires of my heart? The Psalmist and Kierkegaard concur again on the answer to this question, I believe: to sincerely and seriously repent, taking my sin in my hand before God with sorrow and confession, and to commence traveling once more on the good path; with humility in the realization of my inability to continually and wholeheartedly follow God, instead of rash confidence in my own power and goodness.

"O You who give both the beginning and the completing, may You give victory on the day of distress so that the one distressed in repentance may succeed in doing what the one burning in desire and the one determined in resolution failed to do: to will only one thing." - Soren Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits