August 27th Devotion

Learning to Long for the Church: A Meditation on Psalm 84
By Kyle Norman

Bible Reading
“My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” – Psalm 84:2

When you were young, did you ever find yourself giddy with excitement when going somewhere? Maybe it was a theme park, maybe it was grandma’s house, maybe it was a long trip, but internally you were fueled with joy and excitement. Like a kid before Christmas, you couldn’t fall asleep - and if you did, you dream of what you would do when you got there.

Have you ever had that experience on your way to church? Every block you pass on your way makes your heart leap into your throat; you are filled with excitement. I am willing to bet not many of us have had that experience. But this is exactly what Psalm 84 calls us to.

Psalm 84 centers around a pilgrimage to the Temple. For the psalmist, there was no greater thing than approaching the house of the Lord. The joy that is felt is not because the temple was beautifully adorned. The psalmist has a divine longing to be in the temple because the temple was the dwelling place of God - and to be in the temple was to be in God's presence. What is more, to be in God's presence was to experience the wonder of God's divine activity.

Do we have a similar understanding when we step through the front doors of our local churches today? Or do we view the church only in human terms, as a place to sing religious songs, to hear scripture read, to touch base with faithful friends? If we view the church only through the lens of what we do, we might fail to recognize what God does in our midst. Because the church is the place where we gather to meet the God who created, redeemed, and sustains us. And God is present in the church.

In many ways, contemporary society has lost an understanding of sacred space. Life with God has become so individualized that we tend to downplay the importance of the church as a place of God. A common quip is, 'I don't need to go to the church; I can worship God as much on the golf course as anywhere.' And that's true, but do you? Yes, God is everywhere, even the psalmists understood that, but scripture always holds that there is something special about God’s house. Psalm 84 begins, 'How lovely is your dwelling place, O God;' how perfect, how wonderful, how magnificent is the place where God sets God's glory. See, for the psalmist, if God's presence was in the temple in some magnificent, unique, yet indescribable way – then there was no other place that he would rather be.

We come to church to be in God's presence and to open ourselves to divine activity. Because God is not just some passive observer. God never naps in church. God is always moving, always active. Whatever the denomination, whether you meet in a building with a spire or in someone’s home, whether the church is liturgical or charismatic, this is the nature of the church that we are invited to enjoy.