In the Light of Your Countenance

Surely all of us have verses that when we come across again in a new season, smite our heart with their beauty once again as the presence of old and best-beloved friends—but better, because they are in part an essence of our Best-Beloved Friend, and a substance of our life hidden in Him:

“Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound!  They walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance.  In Your Name they rejoice all day long, and in Your righteousness they are exalted.  For you are the glory of their strength, and in your favor our horn is exalted.”  Psalm 89:15-17

I am reminded that I am not living in reality.  For it has been a time of sorrowing in this private corner of mine; and yet I’m blinded to seeing that I walk in the light of His countenance.  Is He smiling and I’m not looking, my eyes on the mountains veiled with storm?  Why is it so hard sometimes to just look up?  Moses’ own countenance, after seeing that of the Lord of which he was allowed there on the mountain, was so glory-filled that the children of Israel could not even look at him (2 Cor. 7-11).  Further into this thought, Paul tells us that his lesser glory reflected was from the old reality, before Christ, and “the ministry of righteousness [in Christ] exceeds much more in glory…for if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.”

...and about that horn being exalted: from The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery "lifting up the horn of someone means bestowing power, joy, health, prestige...horns also became a symbol for radiance..."

If I find myself weakened in this failing body, but He “is the glory of [my] strength, why thus do I falter?  I need more imagination for a reality check.

“Oh satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! “All our days” coming right after “all day long”.  Not much time in my daily life missing from this equation.

“Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil.” Shall I praise Him for the dark threads, the painful moments that have seemed so pointless?  That which has penetrated to the deeps of this heart?

“Let Your work appear to Your servants…” Along with David I will pray that He will show the glory of His plans and His thoughts.  A woman I know who has passed through unimaginable trouble said just last week, “Now I’m finally able to be looking on the other side of the tapestry.”

“…And your glory to their children.  And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:14-17

It is enough, it is 'daily bread', to just have eyes to see reality: God’s glory with us, God’s loving plans surrounding our path.  More than enough--and hard enough.

“If Job could have known as he sat there in the ashes, bruising his heart on this problem of Providence—that in the trouble that had come upon him he was doing what one man may do to work out the problems for the world, he might again have taken courage.  No man lives to himself.  Job’s life is but your life and mine written in larger text…so then though we may not know what trials wait on any of us, we can believe that, as the days in which Job wrestled with his dark maladies are the only days that make him worth remembrance and but for which his name had never been written in the book of life, so the days through which we struggle, finding no way, but never losing the light, will be the most significant we are called to live.”  --Robert Collyer

--walking in the lands husband-father's ancestors owned 250 years ago; the stone fences have probably stood since then.  Rendell, Scotland.

--their ducote (pigeon house) built in 1600's

--ancestor's parish church, preserved since the 1800's, on the North Sea coast

--the current parish dog

--walking the path they would have walked to church every Sunday; 

church ruins atop the sea wall

"Oh, God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come..."

--deciphering barely legible ancestral gravestones from the 1800's; 

many more lay under the sod.

--don't you just wonder if some unruly great-great-great-great aunt got a sound talking to for jumping over this same churchyard fence when she was nine?

--we were the most amazing and fascinating adventure the'yd had in weeks and they rushed to the entertainment of watching us