I Will Dwell (Psalm 23)

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  (Psalm 23:6b)

I’ve been living in my Kentucky house since June.  Initially, because Ken and I had bought this house to be a “second” home (and ultimately our retirement home), we bought some make-shift furniture, just enough to be able to exist.  There were the two folding recliners from our 5th wheel (very uncomfortable), a used bed, some used appliances and TV trays.  Then, when we realized that this move would be more permanent, we bought a kitchen table and chairs and a couple of couches.  I brought out my desk from California and set up my home office in a back bedroom.  But the house still didn’t really feel like “ours.”  Of course, it was ours; it just didn’t feel that way because while we lived, ate, and slept here, the majority of our belongings were in California.  So in late October, we made the trip to California to retrieve our boxes and furniture.  When we got back from our California trip, we began to unpack.  Finally a week or so ago, we hung “the mirror.”

Now “the mirror” in our family has quite a history.  When I was young, my thrifty and amazing mom bought this mirror from a “seconds” shop.  The mirror itself was broken, but the frame was glorious: gold-gilded, large, and artistic in its swerves.  My dad had the mirror replaced and it was hung over my parents’ couch.  In fact, it hung over every couch my parents had until my mom died.  Then Dad gave me the mirror and Ken and I have hung it over every couch we’ve had.  Until this summer.

When I came back from California, I didn’t bring the mirror with me.  No point actually.  Ken was packing up everything from our home in the West, so I knew the mirror would eventually arrive.  I actually didn’t even think about it too much.  But the other day, in beginning to unpack, we decided to hang the really big pieces and get them out of our way.  And so, the mirror got hung up over our couch.  I was astonished at how I felt once the mirror was up.  Because it was at that moment that this house began to feel like it was finally our home.

I began to “dwell” here.

The psalmist ends the pastoral psalm with these words “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  The Hebrew word translated “dwell” is yashab and it has very specific meanings.  It means “to dwell, to remain, to settle, to marry” (Strong’s H3427).  There are some connotations in this word that are very important.

To settle: 

I didn’t realize prior to hanging the mirror, but I hadn’t really settled in this house.  I could have just as easily moved to another without the slightest thought.  This still wasn’t really “my” house.  But now, with the mirror hung (and as we get other rooms settled in), the house is feeling like home, like the place that I will choose to return to each day.  

To remain

Ken and I have moved more than 35 times in our marriage.  That averages to just about once a year.  It’s actually crazy to think how many times we’ve moved.  But there have been houses we lived in where I actually began to “dwell,” to remain.  I settled in with the aim of remaining in that house, redecorating, sometimes even remodeling to make it my own.  There is a commitment in the idea of remaining.  You individualize the house to make it comfortable for you, for your lifestyle, for your family culture.  

To marry

This is an interesting idea, of connecting marriage with “remaining” because the idea of marriage in the Bible involves the ultimate in intimacy.  Marriage in the Bible is always about becoming one flesh, joining together to create a family and perhaps even new lives, of submitting to each other to demonstrate the kind of relationship that we are called to have with the Lord Jesus.

Through the words of this psalm, I believe the Spirit is telling us four things in this:  

• We are to make the commitment to settle into the Lord.  The things of the Lord are to become those things that make us feel at home.  He is to become our center, our safe haven, our place of peace.

• We are to remain with the Lord.  We are to make a conscious commitment to stay, not wondering off to here or there, looking to see if life has something better to offer us.  Our commitment is to stay with the Lord, to learn from Him, to learn about Him, and to love Him with all our minds, hearts, souls and strength.

• We are to develop an intimate relationship with the Lord.  Did you know that marriage is an example of the kind of intimacy that God desires to have with us?  We are to work at developing that kind of intimacy and commitment in our relationship with Him.

• And finally, there is a “forever” component.  David says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  There is an absolute connection between dwelling and forever.  Dwelling has a sense of putting down permanent roots.  We can’t do that with the Lord unless our commitment to Him is forever.  This isn’t a relationship that we can turn away from, looking for something that might feel “better” tomorrow.  This is a forever thing that we devote ourselves to without looking back.

When we dwell in the house of the Lord forever, we stop looking for something or someone else.  We throw our complete trust in Him, knowing that He is trustworthy.  We give all our love and devotion to Him, knowing that He deserves all we have to give . . . and more.  We cling to Him, knowing that there is no other way to live except to follow Him always.  Let us dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

©2017 Robin L. O’Hare.  All Rights Reserved.  Permission is given to Christian ministries to use this study free of charge with the following provisions: (1) used in its entirety including this notice; and (2) used unchanged, unedited, untruncated.  For all other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com