Psalm 84
English Standard Version, David Cochran Audio BibleO Lord of hosts!
2 My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
3 Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
9 Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed!
10 For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
You might remember I've told you about our friends, my father's high school friend; who moved to our town just as my father divorced my mother and became a many-years family friends to my mother. They helped my mom, and her two children, move into our duplex we had rented out for years. And they moved to live near us and my brother did not have to be a latch key child because of them. Going with us to eat Mexican food every Friday night with us when I am sure we were not cheerful, good fun. They joined our Church. And gave me my first job at the Dallas World Trade Center, being so patient with a first time worker.
Very recently their youngest of 4 children, in his 40's, who had fought for so many years for sobriety with a bi-polar diagnosis, took his own life. And my Church family, here where I live as an adult, sent them a hand knit prayer blanket. Knitted with three stitches representing our Father, Holy Spirit and Savior. All the ladies of the Tuesday Night Bible Study signed the card until the card could not hold more ladies wanting to comfort them. I sent along a long letter telling them what I knew of grief recovery group therapy having grieved and recovered from my dad's death and my stillborn daughter, Isabelle.
Last night the phone rang, it was our dear friend. Crying so hard, yet I knew who she was. I had wondered if you could recover from loosing a son to suicide being older. Then we began to talk of her reading list. Our dear, sweet friend began to tell me of the books she has been reading relating Heaven verses of the Bible. What she has learned. Her voice became positive and strong.
She related her utter devastation and she wondered why God was absent the first two weeks. I said I thought that when we are so stricken, it's hard to listen to anyone, much less our own soul. She told me she'd had the strangest experience with her vision the week of the funeral. She could see faces, but her peripheral vision was like a smoke filled room. She thought to herself this is the damnedest time to loose my vision. And she was glad that at least she could see people's faces.
As this precious woman began to read books on Heaven, she realized something important about that cloud lifted from her vision. She could not feel God, she was stricken. Yet He was with her.
1 Kings 8:10-11
When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.
Isaiah 6:3-4
And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
Revelation 15:8
And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power
I realized having visited with this child of God for an hour, she would live to dwell in hope, she would recover from something tragic. We have available to us this hope in Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:13
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
~ O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!
Blessed are You most merciful Father. Blessed are those comforted in You.
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Other Scripture for Today Blogspot readings on Psalm 84:
July 23, 2010
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