#589 Our Home in Every Challenge: Seeing Beyond the Illusion
“How lovely are Thu dwelling places, O LORD of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. The bird also has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O LORD of hosts, My King and my God. How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house! They are ever praising Thee.” Psalm 84:1-4
Our Home is Your altar, O Lord. Wherever we are, whatever the circumstance, regardless of the long pilgrimage ‘on the road, ’ we are not homeless—our Home is Your altar. The altar represents the privilege of deliverance through Christ. The altar also can represent the out-pouring of our love—the place or condition in which we, pictured as a swallow, makes a nest-home for herself where she may lay her young, ie the place or condition in which we pass spiritual life on to others through sacrifice. This relationship of innocence and sacrifice is our Home and sense of belonging, amid the conflicts and challenges in work and in life. Psalm 84:1-2, 3-4!
“Madam Guyon, while imprisoned in the Castle Vincennes (1695), wrote songs and sang them in praise to God. Writing of it subsequently she said, ‘sometimes seems to me as if I were a little bird, whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and that I had nothing now to do but to sing. The joy of my heart gave brightness to the objects around me. The stones of my prison looked to my eyes like rubies.’ In prison she wrote:
‘A little bird I am, shut from the fields of air;
And in my songs I sit and sing to him who placed me there:
Well pleased a prisoner thus to be, because, my God, it pleaseth thee.
My cage confines me round,—abroad I cannot flee;
But though my wing is closely bound, my heart's at liberty.
My prison walls cannot control the flight, the freedom of my soul.’“ R2182
We may not be in a literal prison, as was Madame Guyon, but in circumstances that we sometimes feel trapped in. We know, however, that they are circumstances of HIS CHOOSING. And we know that regardless of when we feel overwhelmed or ‘trapped’ it is illusion, because really we are free to sing and praise, and prove our love to Them as they continuously prove Their love to us.
And in His Perspective and Power of the Holy spirit, we will see beyond the illusion of ‘prison’ and see our freedom in Christ.
Our Prayer: I want to Sing and see the challenges as pure opportunity to show my love and let my light shine, as Pure opportunity to express my love to You, dear Jesus, and You my Heavenly Father, and as pure opportunity to witness the depths of Your love!
Transform what I may see as ‘Prison,’ to the freedom in Christ that belongs to me: Freedom to Praise, Freedom to Love, Freedom to be led in the next step of adventure!
I hear again His Voice in my heart: Trust the environment I have chosen for you!
“How lovely are Thu dwelling places, O LORD of hosts! My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. The bird also has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even Thine altars, O LORD of hosts, My King and my God. How blessed are those who dwell in Thy house! They are ever praising Thee.” Psalm 84:1-4
Our Home is Your altar, O Lord. Wherever we are, whatever the circumstance, regardless of the long pilgrimage ‘on the road, ’ we are not homeless—our Home is Your altar. The altar represents the privilege of deliverance through Christ. The altar also can represent the out-pouring of our love—the place or condition in which we, pictured as a swallow, makes a nest-home for herself where she may lay her young, ie the place or condition in which we pass spiritual life on to others through sacrifice. This relationship of innocence and sacrifice is our Home and sense of belonging, amid the conflicts and challenges in work and in life. Psalm 84:1-2, 3-4!
“Madam Guyon, while imprisoned in the Castle Vincennes (1695), wrote songs and sang them in praise to God. Writing of it subsequently she said, ‘sometimes seems to me as if I were a little bird, whom the Lord had placed in a cage, and that I had nothing now to do but to sing. The joy of my heart gave brightness to the objects around me. The stones of my prison looked to my eyes like rubies.’ In prison she wrote:
‘A little bird I am, shut from the fields of air;
And in my songs I sit and sing to him who placed me there:
Well pleased a prisoner thus to be, because, my God, it pleaseth thee.
My cage confines me round,—abroad I cannot flee;
But though my wing is closely bound, my heart's at liberty.
My prison walls cannot control the flight, the freedom of my soul.’“ R2182
We may not be in a literal prison, as was Madame Guyon, but in circumstances that we sometimes feel trapped in. We know, however, that they are circumstances of HIS CHOOSING. And we know that regardless of when we feel overwhelmed or ‘trapped’ it is illusion, because really we are free to sing and praise, and prove our love to Them as they continuously prove Their love to us.
And in His Perspective and Power of the Holy spirit, we will see beyond the illusion of ‘prison’ and see our freedom in Christ.
Our Prayer: I want to Sing and see the challenges as pure opportunity to show my love and let my light shine, as Pure opportunity to express my love to You, dear Jesus, and You my Heavenly Father, and as pure opportunity to witness the depths of Your love!
Transform what I may see as ‘Prison,’ to the freedom in Christ that belongs to me: Freedom to Praise, Freedom to Love, Freedom to be led in the next step of adventure!
I hear again His Voice in my heart: Trust the environment I have chosen for you!
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