Psalm 43:3 Guide me

Psalm 43:3 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

Having made a number of background remarks with regard to the previous psalm, remarks that probably apply here too, we just concentrate now on the content of the psalm, and especially on verse 3. The psalmist begins by seeking vindication against the ungodly, pleading to be rescued from deceitful and wicked men. God is his stronghold and yet the writer feels that he has been rejected. He is inwardly depressed and outwardly oppressed. Therefore he decides to call on God to act. Once God has acted then he will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God presumably with new psalms that he has written (and presumably that do exist). By the end of the psalm we have not reached that point, however, and so the refrain from the last psalm is repeated. The specific prayer that he prays at this time is that God will send forth your light and your truth. He asks God to let them guide me. He wants to know the way forward in this situation he finds himself in. He adds let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. The verse is steeped in Old Testament ideas. Under the new covenant this is a desire to be in church, to be playing a full part and eventually to be in heaven. Even on the worst days of our lives we must seek God in this way and trust him to lead us safely home.