Psalm 84:10

A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked.

I wonder if you’ve ever experienced homesickness. I certainly have. I loved the years I spent in India and my Indian friends couldn’t have been kinder or welcoming, but there was still a deep longing to see my family and friends and to experience cold weather! At the time, the phone connection between India and the UK was very poor, and in two years I only managed to make one incredibly expensive call to my parents. The line was very crackly and it was very difficult to hear anything, but there were tears rolling down my cheeks as I heard their distant voices. I think the only information we shared that could be clearly heard was them telling me it was raining in Essex, and me informing them that it was hot in India!

The psalmist was thoroughly homesick when he wrote this particular psalm. The home that he longed to be in was the temple. We don’t know why he was unable to get there, but he couldn’t have described his anguish more powerfully. He wrote: “I long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the LORD. With my whole being, body and soul, I will shout joyfully to the living God” (Psalm 84:2). Clearly, the temple itself was incredibly precious to the psalmist, but his longing was to be close to God. He spoke of the joy of those whose strength comes from the Lord and then movingly described the way that even “when they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs” (Psalm 84:6). Even the worst experiences of life can be miraculously transformed when we place our lives into God’s hands.

No wonder the psalmist concluded that it would be better to have the lowest job of all in the presence of God than to have all power and wealth and live at a distance from God. The psalmist’s words are a good reminder for us all of the incredible blessing and privilege of spending time with God.

Question

How important is it to you to spend time with God?

Prayer

Lord God, I praise you for the blessing of living in your presence. Amen