Psalm 84:10

Have you tried scheduling an appointment? Have you felt the excitement that even things you are about to carry with you are already planned or even bought days or sometimes weeks before that day? Have you experienced sleeplessness the night before that “big” day?

When was the last time you experienced being on a “cloud-nine”? Was it because of success? Victory? High grade? The long-awaited “yes”?

If success or the “cloud-nine” is to be earned with sweat and you need to undergo the needle’s eye, excitement is not the initial feeling. Most of the time, you feel so nervous; butterflies are starting to fill your stomach. You are anticipating/hoping for a positive outcome.

So imagine the excitement you will feel if you know that you are expecting for something that will make you happy and satisfied in the end! That is probably the feeling of King David when he utters:

“Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” (Psalm 84:10)

David has experienced the workings and communion of God and so he wanted more of God. He says, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God (Psa 42:2)?” He is too excited to go into the house of the Lord, not because of the splendour of the building (the temple was built when his son succeeded him as king) but because of God Himself. He knew that being in the presence of God, dwelling in His presence is better than anything this world could offer. He loves to be in the presence of God; he wants to be where his love is – and the love of his life is God and God alone. Hasn’t he told us to “taste and see that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8a)”? You will be excited and confident to share if you have seen and tasted something that is really good. So I can’t imagine the goodness and beauty that David has seen that’s why he keeps on praising and sharing God.

Tonight, I am so ashamed before God. It was too late for me to realize that today is Wednesday, that today is the day for our Midweek Service. There are other people I thought have forgotten it but I felt double shame knowing they haven’t forgotten it and I did.

I was about to finish the blog I am supposed to post tonight but this has really struck me. And I thank God He did talk to my heart. He is too gracious to let me feel not just the guilt but the lost of forgetting Him. He is too gracious to fill my heart with so many convictions that when I opened Winamp to play music, Better is One Day was the music playing. I felt so bad missing our Midweek Service. I felt so bad I was too preoccupied with some other things that I forgot God. I felt so ashamed of myself.

May this confession help you see the worth of immersing in the presence of God. May David challenge you as he has with me today to “taste and see the goodness of God”. He has seen and tasted God’s goodness and he never wanted to depart from God; how little do I see God that I have forgotten Him today? He was so overwhelmed by God’s love that His love is better than life (Psalm 63:3) for him.

Tonight, it is my prayer that even a pinch of David’s heart after God be also my heart. May God forgive me.

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The following is a commentary of Albert Barnes on Psalm 84:10a. I hope it will help you appreciate the verse more deeply.

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand - Better - happier - more profitable - more to be desired - than a thousand days spent elsewhere. That is, I should find more happiness - more true joy - in one day spent in the house of God, in his worship, in the exercises of true religion - more that will be satisfactory to the soul, and that will be dwelt on with pleasure in the memory when life is coming to a close - than I could in a thousand days spent in any other manner. This was much for a man like David - or a man who had been encompassed with all the splendor of royalty - to say; it is much for any man to say. And yet it could be said with truth by him; it can be said with equal truth by others; and when we come to the end of life - to the time when we shall review the past, and ask where we have found most true happiness, most that was satisfactory to the soul, most that we shall delight then to dwell on and to remember, most that we should be glad to have repeated and perpetuated, most that would be free from the remembrance of disappointment, chagrin, and care - it will not be the banqueting hall - the scenes of gaiety - the honors, the praises, the flatteries of people - or even the delights of literature and of the social circle - but it will be the happy times which we shall have spent in communion with God - the times when in the closet we poured out our hearts to Him - when we bowed before him at the family altar, when we approached him in the sanctuary. The sweetest remembrances of life will be the sabbath and the exercises of religion. (Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible)