Psalm 84:10-12

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For the LORD God is a sun and a shield;
The LORD bestows favour and honor;
No good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.

O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man
who trusts in you.

 

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday. But what a day it was! After a quick read through my morning devotions, and a hasty breakfast, I rushed off to my teaching job on the other side of the city. The teaching day was particularly demanding. Not all teenagers are intellectual sponges, eager to soak up wisdom from the fount of learning. Instead, many minds are locked behind cold steel doors. Reaching them is a challenge; teaching them is nigh impossible unless you find the unique key, for their particular mental door. And sometimes students change the locks in the middle of the night, so what worked yesterday, will not work today. That’s all part of the challenge of teaching young teens.    

After a full day of doing mental acrobatics and verbal jousting before a hundred and twenty young minds, it was time to sit down and write report card comments for the parents of these same children. For two and a half hours, I made a substantive start on this onerous task. At last, in the mid November dark, I got into my car for the long commute home. Heavy rain, a stalled car in my lane, and bumper to bumper freeway traffic reduced my progress to a crawl.

But I had a stop to make before reaching home—the flower store. As I stood inside the flower cooler, a dozen autumn-yellow roses caught my eye. They put a spark into my wife’s eyes as well, when I presented them just before dinner. Actually, my wife and son had already started dinner. They had given up waiting for me. Fortunately, the oven-baked frozen pizza was still warm. It tasted good, mostly because I was hungry at the end of a long day.

In the rush of life, some days are better than others. A special day like a birthday is meant to be a better day—a special day above the norm. It should be marked by moments of warmth and friendship. But too often, that’s all there is—a brief moment. The day plunges forward with demanding routines that rob us of intimacy. Instead of something special, we are left with all the relational warmth of a cold, dry, pizza crust.

On a personal level, I think my wife’s birthday should be declared a national holiday! Then as a family, we could celebrate the day together in a manner more in keeping with her worth, and her importance to the well-being of us all. But alas, the chances of this happening are remote indeed. Though I believe she is worthy of the honor, I am not sure the prime minister and his cabinet could be persuaded to my point of view.   

But putting all levity aside, we do need special days. They are essential to the maintenance of any healthy relationship. Despite my stress filled day, my wife’s birthday actually did go largely according to plan. Because of my hectic schedule, we decided in advance to hold off on our celebrations until the weekend. On Saturday, at a more leisurely pace, we went out to her favourite restaurant. We followed that up with a trip to see a friend who is a custom jewellery designer. I bought her a rare agate pin that will always remind her of our love, of good times spent with friends and family, and a special day in her honor that we spent together.

Really all of Psalm 84 is written in praise of a special day—a day spent in God’s presence. Throughout this Psalm there is a longing to be with God—a desire to be close to him. So we hear the Psalmist declare, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.“

If you were to plan for the best day in your life, what would that day include? What would it look like? How and where would you spend your best day? Would the LORD be at the center of it all?

Love is at the core of every special day. Think back to some of the best days of your life—days marked by joy and excitement. If you scratch beneath the surface of those days, you will find love at the core.

We are in fact love starved people. We need it as much as the air we breathe. Experiments have shown that the unloved, un-caressed, unspoken to baby will die, even though all its physical needs are met. So, when love comes to us, we celebrate it, frolic in it, and throw a party to announce it.

Some of the best days of my life were falling-in-love days. To think someone loved me, simply wanted to be with me, well, it put a real bounce in my step. To be more accurate, it fried all my circuits. Thinking of her made me dreadfully forgetful. I would routinely forget what I was doing mid-task. I was noted for being calm and sedate. Now suddenly, I was doing outrageous, crazy things. Love has a special way of breaking down barriers and freeing us from inhibitions. Real love is never rational; it doesn’t make sense.

We need love. We need to receive it. We need to give it.

It was love that brought the psalmist to the House of God. It drew him like a magnet, pulled at his heart, tugged at his sleeve, and finally ushered him through the door. Love set him on this pilgrimage. It kept his weary feet moving mile after dreary mile. When he finally reached his goal—the object of his love—in wonder, we hear him exclaim, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh cry out for the living God” (v. 1-2)

In reality, Psalm 84 is a love poem. It’s all about the psalmist’s quest for love. These opening lines express it best. The psalmist is thirsting for a drink from heaven’s Eternal Fount of Love. He yearns, faints and cries out for the living God. He expresses all this in what any poet would call the language of love. Here we see the psalmist as the love-starved lover in search of the Divine Love of his soul.

This hunger and thirst for love, is in fact, a recurring theme throughout the Psalms, and indeed, all of Holy Scripture. Psalm 42 begins with these words. As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42:1-2).

Best days are days spent in pursuit of love, with the one we love. We yearn for such times. This pursuit of love is what drives the sales of a thousand romance novel titles. It is the wellspring for a million songs. It powers a large part of the movie industry. It turns Valentine’s Day into a global celebration.

The psalmist was pursuing love with the one he loved—the LORD Almighty. Have you spent time pursuing him lately? Is a day spent with him, something you yearn for? Or, are you embarrassed by the blatant language of love that the psalmist uses here? Do hymns of praise and worship choruses bore you?

All true worship is an act of love. It extols the virtues of the one we love, and it delights in simply being together. It unites the worshipped with the worshipper.

            Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked (v. 10).

There is no better place than with the one you love. If I know the love of God, I can bask in that love, relax in it, and dance to it. Why would I want to be anywhere else? I am satisfied in his arms of love—arms that reach out to me. There is no temptation for the fully satisfied. The tents of the wicked hold no allure.

The best place is the place of the greatest love. And when the LORD Almighty is our lover, we can rest assured that there is no shortage of love. He did not spare his Son in his pursuit of love but rather offered him up for us. He let nothing come between us, not even our filthy load of sin. By the death of his Son, he removed it. Forever! Oh, what a Lover!

Why would I want to be with him? The answer is obvious. I am safe and affirmed with the one I love. He treats me well. For the LORD God is a sun and a shield; the LORD bestows favour and honor.

The LORD God brightens my day. He puts a spring in my step and a glint in my eye. Love has a way of doing that.

The LORD God surrounds and covers me with his shield. I am protected by him. He is my pillar of fire by night. No marauder can invade this hallowed sanctum and steal me away. After all, I am my beloved’s and he is mine. And his banner over me is love (Song of Solomon 6:3, 2:4 KJV).

The LORD bestows favour and honor. A lover will do that, and this Divine lover certainly does. He showers me with blessings. There are countless blessings, and they are so undeserved, and sometimes they are so unexpected. So often, he takes me completely by surprise. Lovers do that sort of thing. I know he must delight in seeing the look of surprise on my face, as he blesses me in some new, phenomenal way. 

The LORD’s love is extravagant. How extravagant, you ask? Well, we have this promise—this assertion—here in this psalm. No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

There is a huge extravagance in that assertion. I can think of plenty of things that are good: friendship, health, prosperity and fruitful days, to name just a few. This lover of my soul withholds none of these from me. His hand of blessing is always held open wide to me. The good God I serve only does good things, and in this respect, he has proven himself to me over and over again. I can trust him. Only one condition applies, and that is that my walk be blameless.

Now, may my prayer ever be for a blameless walk, for a life lived in pleasing him.

It is the extravagance of God’s love that should motivate each of us to live a blameless life. The apostle Paul reminds us of this when he states, He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32).

There he goes again—promising me the world. Lovers are a bit crazy that way, quite irrational. Here in the above passage, God is promising with Christ to “graciously give us all things.”

Now, that’s a bit rich. Except this lover of mine really is rich—rich beyond measure. Bill Gates is a lowly pauper before him. If my Lover promises the world, he can deliver. And he will deliver. The one who formed the world will turn it over to us—to my Lover and me. That’s his promise.

You see the day will come, when I’m going to reign with him. I have his word on it. Actually, I am reigning in life right now, through him. Again, his word assures me that “those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

But the big day—the best day is still coming—the day of consummation. The wedding feast of the lamb will be the best day of all. No other day can match it. Then, we will see him face to face. I don’t know about you, but I have had enough of this long-distance loving.

Someday soon, he is coming.

Someday soon, I’m going with him. Someday soon …

The bride of Christ, perfected through suffering, will be caught up to meet him in the air. This Lover will literally sweep you off your feet. He will sweep you off your feet and take you home to his house. Someday soon …

The best day? It’s still coming. It’s coming soon.

As in eager anticipation, I await that day—the best day—may these words be my constant testimony, “O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you!”

Bringing Life to the Psalms

1. If you were to plan for the best day in your life, what would that day include? Why not plan to spend a day—a special day—with the LORD? This may involve getting away to a retreat center, where you can focus in on the Lover of your soul. Consider what things you might do together to make this, a special day—a best day—spent with him.
2. Is there a hymn or worship chorus that you love that ushers you into God’s throne room? Sing it to him. Sing it over and over. Let it be your love song for the day, or for however long it resonates between you and the One you love.
3. A sense of place can be important. Is there a physical place where you feel closer to God? It could be at church, at home, or somewhere out in nature. Spend some intimate moments there. We can’t always make the grand pilgrimage, but lovers find time—they make time to be together.
4. The psalmist exclaims, “O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you!” Do you find your trust in God growing day by day? Trust is relaxed, never agitated. It grows best in a sunny place. Plan some Son time this week.
5. Reread all of Psalm 84. What is God saying to you by His Spirit?

Today’s post is Chapter 14 from the book Psalms Alive! Connecting Heaven & Earth by David Kitz. To find out more or purchase click here.