Let’s enter God’s dwelling place; let’s worship at the place God rests his feet! (Psalm 132:7, Common English Bible)
Since travel is out for so many of us, I’ve found myself daydreaming about trips my family has taken in recent years, including an amazing week that my wife and I spent in Charleston, SC, for our 25th anniversary in the spring of 2019. I had never been to Charleston and immediately sensed why it’s become a popular place to visit with the breadth of restaurants and eye-catching architecture. One of the highlights of the trip was the hotel we stayed in. We splurged a bit (it was our 25th anniversary!) and stayed in a hotel with a lot of amenities, including a remarkable turndown service that included soft music playing and various dessert liqueurs for us to sample. After a long day of walking around, it was nice to remember what was waiting for us when we got back to our room! I realize that we essentially paid for that hospitality, but it will still nice to receive it.
That sense of desiring a welcome home is so strong in us. It’s a yearning that we especially feel now in these socially distant times. I felt the power of that when I was reading through Psalm 132 last week. “Dwelling place” is mentioned twice in the passage, including the verse shown above. The sense of going to God’s dwelling place, where I’ll be welcomed is a comfort and provides healing on those days when we may not feel welcomed in many places. But as I was praying over this psalm, another thing came to mind. I may be eager to go into God’s dwelling place…but how attentive am I to creating a dwelling place for God?
In John 20, we are told, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.‘” As much as I want to be in God’s dwelling place, a location where I know I’ll be loved, I realized I may not always be offering the best dwelling place for the Spirit to be received so that the Spirit can dwell in me.
Both are needed. We crave a dwelling place. And God desires to dwell in us.
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash