Meditation Monday // Psalm 23:6
Psalm 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (ESV)
Many of us are running from something. We’re not exactly sure what it is - dread, shame, guilt maybe? It can take the shape of a dark cloud in our minds, following us, finding us, invading our moments of joy and reminding us that something bad might catch up to us. That the word we spoke in anger might be repeated. That the idol we worship in our secret heart might be exposed in front of others. That the disease we thought we were controlling might get ahead in its work and debilitate us.
This verse tells us that something is, indeed, following us. In fact, it’s pursuing us - chasing us, even. But it’s not the dark cloud of regret or the credit card debt we can’t seem to shake that’s on our tail. It’s not our crippling shame or someone else’s anger that creeps up on us and finds us crouched in our corners of guilt. It’s something else, something miraculous, something wanted -goodness.
God’s goodness is following you. It creeps into gray pockets of grief, pushes into sick rooms, and breaks through the silent anger of your worst arguments. God’s benevolence to his creation surrounds you in inches of rain on thirsty farmland, in beautiful birdsong at your morning window, in bright yellow maple leaves of October. His goodness follows you, enfolds you, hems you in.
But if you are in Christ, there is more to this goodness. If you have trusted the King, this goodness expands beyond daily bread and stunning beauty. This goodness takes on flesh and enters in, humbles itself and experiences heartache, hunger, and hatred. Why? Because something else follows you, Christian - mercy. God’s unachieved, undeserved, unearned mercy follows you. And it will continue to, all the days of your life.
But the goodness doesn’t end there.
I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
David speaks of his future, his permanent home, as a life in the house of the Lord. He plans to dwell, to live there. For now he’s on the move, probably running from an enemy. He has known God’s goodness in providing for him, in spreading a table for him in the presence of his enemies. But that meal, that meeting is that of a traveler, a soldier. David anticipates here a dwelling place, an abiding home with his God.
What’s so great about living in God’s house? The roommate. Goodness himself, the one who designed the geometry of the raindrop, wrote the melody of the songbird, and mixed the pink hues of the sunset has made himself available for cohabitation. Your future in Christ involves spending the countless days of eternity near beauty himself, enjoying his presence, marveling at his goodness, awestruck at his mercy.
