Pride of Place

I remember a situation many years ago when a church minister, who had been a tremendous help to a friend of mine, had to leave the church because of a serious moral failure. My friend felt at first as if everything that had gone before was somehow tainted, including her own faith. Not so! It is encouraging to realize that when in some way or another, we or someone we know fails, this doesn’t mean any work done previously suddenly loses all its value. Solomon, and for that matter David, failed in many ways, but that doesn’t mean that the Temple they helped to set up was therefore automatically tainted. Israel could still be justifiably proud of what they had achieved!

This particular psalm picks up the issues raised in the 1 and 2 Kings narratives. We see here the enthusiasm and dedication involved in the building of the Temple and the delight at its completion. There is a stress on God as the One who consistently keeps his promises, but also on the “if only” so often found in those promises. The real emphasis, however, the climax of the psalm, is on the positive, the potential of what could be in this place God had chosen. It should be, it could be, a place of joy and blessing: a blessing characterized not so much by great riches coming to the rulers, as by all the poor having enough to eat; and joy, not because of power and reputation, but because of the knowledge of salvation. Paul reminds Christians that their bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you” (1 Cor. 6:19). That is to say, they are places for God to use as a “resting place” (8), a throne and a storehouse from which to distribute his blessings.

“The Lord has chosen (insert your name), he has desired [him/her] for his dwelling place.” How do you feel about this truth?