. . .and I shall dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. . .”
Psalm 23
Last night I drove through the
pick-up lane at a fast food restaurant in the neighborhood where we used to
live and saw, once again, the upstairs window I used to look out of when putting
our baby son to sleep. The floor plan of
that home will never leave me. On the
east side, upstairs, my daughter used to sleep beneath windows where dawn turned
the whole world glorious. In the room
between, my wife and I shared intimacies that seem now almost furtive, between
our two little kids.
Down in the basement, south east
corner, on a cement floor covered with series of second-hand rugs I continuously
replaced after heavy spring rains, I wrote more than a few books. There’s a wall-sized book rack we made in the
family room, and in one of my short stories there’s a description of the way
the January sun used to slant through the windows of the living room.
I don’t know who lives there now,
but in a spiritual sense that house is still my home.
King David held a life-long passion
for building the house of the Lord, a burning desire to create a worship space
for God. God said no. The Lord God almighty didn’t want David’s
hands on the tools. “You are a man of
war and have shed blood,” God told him.
That was incredible decision for a man who loved God as much as he did,
and who was loved as deeply.
David’s passion for building that
temple—and God’s rejection of him as a builder—begs to be read into this famous
last line. Finally, even the King couldn’t
do what he always wanted to.
You can feel the power of his
resolution in this last verse, and it’s stronger, I believe because he has
once, here on earth, been forbidden.
David’s fist comes down hard when
he testifies that he’s going to live forever in the house of the Lord,
something he’d wanted for so long.
There’s an assertion in this final
verse of the psalm, an assertion with attitude.
That’s where I’m going to be,
says the rejected builder, and that’s where I’m going to be, praise God, for
eternity. “And I shall live in the house
of the Lord forever.”
See him pointing? And he’s smiling. Forever.
What a story. What a line. What a believer.
What a God.
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