Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the man You choose, and cause to approach You, that he may dwell in Your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house.”
I came across this verse a couple days ago. A couple days ago, that is, when life felt pretty good; when, even in the midst of so much uncertainty and what feels like an endless season of waiting, I felt at peace & good & excited about life in general. {Quick side note: I’ve been learning recently that those feelings that come from God Himself, by His grace, have to be actively sought after and received anew each day. His mercies really are new every morning because they are needed every morning. They are SO there for the taking and I have come to learn that it is my responsibility to do just that – to accept what is offered to me as a gift every single day, without fail. More than once I have succumbed to the belief that I can experience God one day and that the “high” will then last me for a few more days. Realizing that this is actually how I have lived freaked me out, so I began asking God to show me how much I need Him; to expose me to the person that I am without Jesus so that I will want Him and therefore pursue Him that much more. And He listened. I’ve started feeling much more aware of my sinful human nature and the things that I become so easily entangled in that He has called & continues to call me to be free from. And how beautiful that when my anxious thoughts, discontentment, worry, self-focus, selfishness, laziness, jealousy, and whatever else meet me in my waking moments, so does His mercy.}
Anyways, where I was going with that is here: one day I came across this verse at a nice high point in life, and a couple days later I referred back to it because somehow, in the span of only a couple days, I had gone from “Yay, it’s so fun and exciting to have absolutely no clue what the heck will happen next because I trust Jesus and that’s all that matters!” to “holy crap, what if I end up going to college in Turlock, California and working the same exact job for literally the rest of my life because I never finalize a major or decide on a career and then I’ll never move out or get married or have kids or have the opportunity to live somewhere else??” Leave it to my brain to spiral completely out of control and freak myself out, imagining all the worst-case scenarios. All this to say, emotions are unpredictable. One day I was fine, the next, part of me was hating life and questioning the will of God. Story of my life. Back and forth. I am being reminded of my need for Jesus, and not just my need for Him, but also to what extent that need exists within me, if that makes sense… And let me tell you: it is all the time. I can trust nothing but His promises.
Psalm 65:4 convicts me of letting my heart dwell in a state of discontentment and thus completely overlooking a gift (another gift) I have been given, undeservedly, and am only now just figuring out how to actually receive. This gift? The season I am in. There is an extensive amount of stillness & waiting & fighting against discontentment and thinking too far into the future happening right now, and it’s a fight because it’s easy to go there, but I desperately do not want to miss out on what is right in front of me. I choose to believe that it is a gift. Although I can only see so far ahead before the view gets hazy, I trust that there is much to be gained.
Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the man You choose, and cause to approach You, that he may dwell in Your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house.”
Here’s why I love this verse; why it brings me to my knees in both humility and weakness because I am completely undone by the reassurance that I don’t have to worry about a single thing: I see this season of my life as God choosing me. He’s causing me to approach Him constantly because when I’m forced to wait for so many things that I want but am not getting at this moment, the only thing I can do or even want to do is come before Him, where He then turns all other desires that I have into one single desire for more of Him. He chose me and continues to choose me every day. He invites me to approach Him with boldness, to cast my cares on Him, to dwell in His courts with Him. And I shall be satisfied with His goodness, the one thing that is always certain.