Meditations from Zion

“How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
    for the living God.” [Psalm 84:1-2; NIV, 1984]

Two things stand out in these verses: God’s dwelling place and God being alive.

The entire idea of a dwelling place must be integrated into our consciousness. Where is the dwelling place? Perhaps in ancient times when the Temple was a designated place for God’s Presence there in Jerusalem, but that is no longer the case. Jesus and his subsequent disciples and teachers have made it clear that the kingdom is within us, the very Presence of the Holy Spirit provides a dwelling for God. “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” [I Corinthians 3:16]

Where God is, it is lovely. Where God walks, it’s a garden. Where God is sovereign, there is peace. My longing is to dwell within the protective peace of God’s Holy Spirit. To live with abandon, in Christ. This is the greatest paradigm shift of all. We are not alone in this search. People are seeking the same thing but by different routes. I don’t know those outcomes but I do know the promise I have in the Christ: “Nor will people say, Look! Here [it is]! or, See, [it is] there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you [surrounding you].” [Luke 17:21; Amplified]

And so I will dwell with a living God and because God is alive, God is transformative and seasonal and dynamic. God is not static. God is a river, an ocean, a Milky Way. God is a sun, a fire, a volcano. God is wind and cloud and dew. God is breath.