Psalm 84 has always held a place of joy and comfort for my
heart. I opened to it for this morning’s
Psalms reading, and it once again felt the touch of an old friend. I wrote some verses from it into a card for
our eldest daughter, who leaves today for some time in Cambodia. I didn’t realize until I sat down to write
this, that this Psalm had become meaningful to me when I was exactly the age
she is now, finishing up her senior year of high school. Our assignment, 30 years ago, was to study a
Psalm through commentaries and write a paper for our senior thesis. Everyone groaned and leaped to the shortest,
easiest, most familiar Psalms. Late, I
chose recklessly and randomly a more obscure Psalm. Late, and home sick from school, with the
paper due all too soon, I cracked open the commentaries I’d amassed, and set to
work.
This assignment became the most meaningful, enjoyable
several-dozen hours I spent in my entire school career.
Understanding the obscure imagery, reading what people like
Matthew Henry and others said to make the verses come alive, realizing the
depth of meaning in the verses, it was like going snorkeling in tropical waters
for the very first time – a whole new world come alive. How often are we skimming above the waters thinking
we “see”, and missing the colorful world underneath the surface?
Blessed is the man
whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.
From Abraham to Frodo, since Adam and Eve were sent from the
garden we all have been captivated somewhere in our hearts by the longing of
pilgrimages – the longing to arrive at a place we dimly know is the ultimate of
our desires. “Pilgrimage always orients
the believer toward an anticipated goal…a life of traveling for an eventual place
of rest…one senses it also encompasses broader implications for the pilgrimage
of faith and trust that characterizes God’s people at all times…they are people
of the way, journeying rather than settled…”
As they pass through
the Valley of Baca they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with
pools. They go from strength to
strength; each one appears before God in Zion.”
(KJV)
“Passing through the valley of
Weeping (Baca)they make it a place of springs; the early rain also fills [the
pools] with blessing. They go from
strength to strength [increasing in victorious power]. (
Valleys can reference hard times. I’ve passed through some of the dark wilds in
those valleys, where the sun went early behind the hills. Valleys are places where battles are often
fought, for the topography is “right”. The
arrows above and stones underfoot can stumble us wearily. But valleys are places where rivers are
found, where things can grow verdant. The valley in Psalm 84 is the Valley of
Weeping. The Psalmist tells us it can be
made a place of oasis for others weary along the way.
And the promise of those who do? Increasing in victorious power.
Our girl will, no doubt, be blessed far more by those in
poverty, in dry and weary places, whose faces shine with their new-found life
and hope in Christ, than she brings to them from her western comfort. She knows she goes to walk among brothers and
sisters in Christ who will be rewarded in their heavenly home. We pray she, wearing the clothing of His Spirit
also, will make the places she travels, springs—pools of blessing and
refreshment. But those she’ll meet, some
who have been persecuted for His sake, who have sacrificed that He be made known to
many, draw the deepest, sweetest water for others.
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