Psalm 84 is chock-full of Hebrew “word pictures,” which invite the student to ponder for a while, then be amazed at the goodness of God and a life shared with him.

(I began writing this post with the idea of covering briefly ALL the beautiful nuggets in Psalm 84 — but before I knew it, I had written quite a long bit on just the first verse. In the interest of accommodating your attention span, I shall save the rest for other posts.)

How lovely is the place where God dwells.

The writer of Psalm 84 says in verse one:

“How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of Hosts.”

“Dwelling places” is translated from the Hebrew word mishkan. In studying Covenant, I learned this is the same word God used when he commanded Moses to build a tabernacle because God intended to camp right with the twelve tribes of Israel following Moses. In Exodus 25:8, God says:

“Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”

Again, the Hebrew word used here is mishkan. What is significant about this word is that it not only means “to dwell in the midst of,” it also carries the idea of of revealing.

There are people who dwell together like roommates, with no intimacy, and there are marriage people who dwell together in complete intimacy and reveal themselves to one another. What delights me about this is that there are other words for “dwell” that have nothing to do with revealing and intimacy. The writer chose this word carefully because God meant just that:

“I want to be your God. I want to live among you.  I want to show myself to you, reveal myself to you. I want to show you my goodness. I want you to really know me.”

Don’t forget: God didn’t have to live with us. He WANTED to.

I love the fact that God wants to dwell in the midst of His people!

When teaching seminars I often challenge my students to consider how it might have been, if God had made other choices or had different priorities. For instance, Jesus could have arranged for our sin price to be paid, returned to heaven and said, “See you when you get here!” But NO, he arranged to live right inside of us, by giving us His Spirit. The Lord wanted to share life with his beloved children, NOW.

We have a glorious eternity awaiting us with Him in heaven, but that eternal life begins now because His Spirit dwells in us now. Getting us to heaven wasn’t Jesus’ primary goal; His stated primary goal is for us to know Him and the Father — in other words, it’s all about the relationship. It makes sense that he would make this relationship available to us the moment we are born into the family.

I believe relationship with His creation is what God wanted all along. Furthermore, His favorite flavor of faithfulness is obviously up close and personal. While it is true that for now, we can see and know God less fully than we will in heaven, Jesus made it abundantly clear that we can know God in some measure now. My experience is that even a small measure of knowing God has been life-changing, heart-changing, and wonderful.

So the fact is that today, the dwelling place of God is in YOU and ME. However unworthy you may feel, however difficult it may be to believe, it is true:

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NASB)

If you are in Christ, God lives in you. You are now his temple, his tabernacle. You are the place from where God lives and moves and has his being on this earth. And that is by his choice, amazingly enough!

So consider again the words of the Psalmist:

“How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts!”

This means, again, YOU are “the lovely place” where God lives on earth, if you have invited His Spirit to come fully live in you.

Sure, the heart wants to protest, “I’m not lovely, not really. I know what I am really like, with all my weaknesses, bad thoughts, inconsistencies….”

Or perhaps you did better: you leaped over that to the truth that you ARE lovely because of God’s righteousness and Spirit in you. Good for you! But there is more.

The lovely, and beloved, habitation of God

The Hebrew word yadid has been translated as lovely, beloved, or well-beloved. Like many Hebrew words, it can be applied two or three ways depending on where emphasis is placed. In the NIV translation the emphasis is on the loveliness of where God dwells. In other words, if God is there, it is beautiful because he lives there.

In other translations, such as the Complete Jewish Bible, the emphasis is on how the observer loves and cherishes the place God inhabits:

How deeply loved are your dwelling places, Adonai-Tzva’ot!

Complete Jewish Bible

When faced with different translations of a word like this I wonder, which one is more accurate? Is it more accurate to say God’s dwelling place is lovely, or that it is beloved? I think both are right! Why? Because the crucial concept is that God comes, God reveals himself, and this generous sharing of himself both makes His habitation lovely and makes us love to be there. And don’t overlook the fact that if God has chosen to live in you, it is because He loves you. You are well-beloved of God, which is why he designed a way to live connected to your soul and spirit.

It’s easy to take for granted this awesome person who lives with us!

Ponder this: the person who penned these words in Psalm 84 did not have God living inside of him. He had to travel three times a year to Jerusalem where God’s temple was in order to worship Him, to the one place that God designated as his home on earth. That worshiper couldn’t get up every morning and simply said, “Good morning, Lord!” and have the joy of spending every day with him.

The Old Testament worshiper had to put his daily life on hold, pack up his family and everything needed for a journey to Jerusalem. Being with God and experiencing His beautiful Presence cost this worshiper money, time and effort, and it was worth every expense.

While God commanded the worshiper to make this journey, for the author of Psalm 84 it was no chore. His heart was there. He loved to go to God’s temple! He loved God, he loved being invited, he loved the privilege of being part of God’s covenant people. He loved hearing the words read from the scroll that revealed God’s heart and ways.

For this worshiper it was true that God’s dwelling place was lovely AND that he loved it.

Faith is believing you are God’s beloved, chosen habitation on earth.

God has made you lovely by choosing to live in you. You are beloved — deeply loved of God. And God desires to reveal Himself to you as you share life together. He wants you to know him, to truly taste of His goodness and wisdom and gracious heart. God is not playing hard to get. He is not hiding from you. You don’t have to hold your mouth just right or pray perfect prayers to “see” Him better. Just believe in his Presence, treasure him and love him for choosing to dwell in you and reveal Himself.

How has God revealed Himself in you lately?  What do you “see” of him now that you did not before? Are you getting to know him better?