For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness.
✙ Ps 84:10 ✙
We live in a world in which there are "successful" people who look to how they can
best utilize others in order to gain power or happiness or wealth or
fame for themselves. I, however, am called to follow One who came not to be served but to serve [Matt. 20:28]. The psalmist, no less a part of the church than I am, understood better than I what Christ meant. For they desired not length of life, but even the briefest time near to the heart of God. And they desired not ease and pleasure, but service to God and to God's people.
My prayer for today is this 1681 hymn* by Richard Baxter:
Lord, it belongs not to my care
whether I die or live;
to love and serve thee is my share,
and this thy grace must give.
If life be long, I will be glad,
that I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
to welcome endless day?
whether I die or live;
to love and serve thee is my share,
and this thy grace must give.
If life be long, I will be glad,
that I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
to welcome endless day?
My knowledge of that life is small,
the eye of faith is dim;
but ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
and I shall be with him. Amen.
the eye of faith is dim;
but ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
and I shall be with him. Amen.
*Here's a nice tune to which I like to sing this hymn:
