Today’s Scripture Reading (July 8, 2016): Psalm 63
A number of years ago I attended a youth event and on the first night there was a rock concert, held in a local church. During the concert, the band’s lead guitarist leapt off of the stage to play a guitar solo on the flat altar railing at the front of the church. Afterward, a number of us gathered for coffee in a restaurant. The topic of conversation was, maybe not surprisingly, was the guitar solo. The event was sponsored by the local Bible College, and the Profs had already weighed in on the subject. Dancing on the altar during a guitar solo was wrong. But there was one gentleman in our group that didn’t get it. He was a Christian man but attended a different denomination from the one who was sponsoring the conference. This denomination did not have altars at the front of their churches. To him, the altar railing was simply an attractive place to put on a show.
The conference itself was a three-day affair. On the last night, the musicians played, a speaker spoke and finally an invitation was given to come and pray at the altar. Over a hundred teens moved to the front of the church surrounding the beleaguered altar railing. Tears were shed and laughter was heard over the next hour as people got their lives right with God. Some people left as the time dragged on, but I sat at the back of the sanctuary and prayed until the last of the teens had left their sacred place of sacrifice. Then I slowly moved out of the church sanctuary. As I left the church building there were several people still milling around in the parking lot. One of them was my friend from guitar solo altar conversation a couple of nights earlier. He waved me over and had one simple sentence to speak to me before he left. “I get now why playing the guitar solo on the altar was wrong.” And with those words he walked away. What had been missing for him in the argument a couple of nights earlier was present now. On this night, he could echo these words of David - I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Once he had seen the power of God poured out on the altar of the local church, there was nothing more that needed to be said.
Sprinkled over the past decades are a few nights like that one, nights where the glory and power of God were on display. There have been times when lives have been changed and a presence that is indescribable that shook the foundations of who I am. And the importance of these times cannot be underestimated. David wrote these words in a moment when his life seemed to be falling apart around him. Absalom was on the throne of Israel and making a play to make it permanent. And David was in the desert, far from his palace and the comforts that had become a constant in his life. Yet, he remembered the presence of God in the sanctuary. And remembering his presence gave him faith that God was still in control. Only what God desired to happen really mattered.
Earlier he had written these words - “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). The reason for David’s confidence is clear. He had seen God in his (God’s) sanctuary and beheld his power and his glory. And it is similar moments that should sustain us when we have to walk through our darkest valley. Even in the desert, we remember the times when God’s presence was so real to us.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 17
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