(Paul prays that) you will be given the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the riches of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:2-3

Stretching back into the achieves of Christian worship music, there was a song that was hugely popular in its day. It’s one of the early vertical worship songs I ever knew, and it went like this:

  Lord, You are more precious than silver;
  Lord, You are more costly than gold;
  Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds;
  And nothing I desire compares with You. (Lynn DeShazzo-1982)

Playing off of Proverbs 8:10-11, the song compares God to a number of things that are considered of great value—silver, gold, diamonds—Even 2500 years ago, these were seen as valuable in and of themselves. “Choose my instruction instead of silver, my knowledge rather than choice gold, for (God’s) wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with it.”

That song’s popularity was probably, in part, due to the fact that in its day there was little competition for worship songs that spoke adoration directly to God. Something in our souls was crying out to express to Jesus how much we loved and valued Him. He was always doing such great things for us and we simply wanted to tell Him how grateful we were and how wonderful He was.

Which brings up a point: How much do we desire Jesus? Does our desire for Him surpass all other desires? Or does our preoccupation with currently unmet desires overshadow our gratitude and joy for all He’s already done for us?

Or… have we morphed our desire for God into desiring the things of God? As I prepared this meditation I searched for the name of the person who wrote Lord You Are More Precious Than Silver, and I bumped into a string of sermons, which interpreted “…nothing I desire compares with You” into something else…

Nothing I desire but Your Word
Nothing I desire by going to church meetings
Nothing I desire but the ‘disciplines’ like intercession, Bible study, fasting, good doctrine, etc.

When you come right down to it, there were a lot of substitutes in those messages for a pure and undeviating preoccupation with Jesus, Himself. We don’t want substitutes, we want the real Jesus. After that, the other things fall into place.

How much do we desire Jesus in whom all these other ‘riches of wisdom and knowledge are hidden?’ (Col 2:3)