Sanctuary

Often when I’m reading scripture, a passage will jump out at me and I’ll write it down in my notebook and go back to it throughout the day. Sometimes I don’t feel ready to move on so I just keep writing the same passage again and again for days, sometimes for a couple of weeks. That was the case with Psalm 73 a number of months ago. I won’t include the whole Psalm here but I’ll tell you that it begins with the Psalmist expressing his distress on what he was observing in the world around him. It seemed to him that evil was flourishing and that his own efforts to do good brought him nothing but pain. Everything seemed upside down to him. The evil people were getting away with evil, and those doing good were suffering. About halfway through the Psalm he says, “When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me—until I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.” 

Every Wednesday I go to a wonderful Bible study. Last week the Bible Study leader was reminding us that God doesn’t call us to go on a journey on our own, but to go with Him. Always with Him. That reminded me of “until I came into the sanctuary of God.” 

Everything looks different when I remember God’s presence—when I view the world or myself or my neighbor from that place of His sanctuary, the sanctuary which is my home in Him, which is open to me and to you all the time, every second. Only then, I perceive. I perceive the beauty in those around me and God’s love for them. I perceive God’s justice and mercy, always at work beyond what I can imagine with my finite knowledge and understanding. I perceive the smallness of my own life and yet how precious I am to God. 

A sanctuary is a place of safety. A place of security. It is in that place of security in and with God that I have room to perceive. 

Blessings to you this week as you remember God’s sanctuary is open to you and as you take each step with Him. You are so very loved. 

~Amy