Fixed Point
“For there the LORD commanded the blessing – life forever.”
~ Psalm 133:3
Strange to link a blessing to a particular place, as though geographic location could be the only evidence that God’s promise is trustworthy; that His faithfulness is genuine. And yet, as one friend noted not long ago, the Promised Land’s desirability didn’t lie in the physical inheritance as much as in the fact that it served as a sign: proof that the Israelites were the people in a covenant relation with the One true God.
Part of the mystery of His favor is that He selects the very place where it will reside. He “commands” His blessing to fall over one place, and no other holds that special commendation. Zion alone was where He would grant “life forever.” The way is narrow –
Perhaps it is more of a grace than we realize: that God has not left us many options; that there aren’t “several ways” to exist within His covenant, or various means to discover His eternal rest. For if there were many opportunities, would we not, in our self-striving, come upon ways that were lesser? Instead, by His gracious choosing, there is but one, and all others lead to ‘death’ and destruction (see Proverbs 16:25) – that we might stay the course for which we were intended.
And yet, even when we choose a path which diverges, He has given us the grace of that fixed point. For while we may stray from that place of His blessing, there is – because He has established it as His desire – no time at which that location will be altered or removed:
“For the LORD has chosen Zion;
He has desired it for His habitation.
This is My resting place forever...”
~ Psalm 132:13-14
Perhaps the greatest gift is not His favor itself, His promise to ‘abundantly bless the provision’ (Psalm 132:15), but His specifically leaving immovable that place where He first declared His blessing to rest. He has delineated clearly where His favor abides, the one pathway by which we can enter into a faith relationship with Him. Yet perhaps even more profound a gift is His having left that location unchanged - because, understanding His wayward creatures to need a reference point, He has designed that His favor be awaiting us in the exact place from which we had departed it --
As C.S. Lewis makes the analogy, our sin's yield is like an arithmetic problem, in which the only way to contend with it is to ‘re-work it from that point of error.’ Does our Maker not know us that well, that He should foresee on our behalf the gracious provision? Has He not planned so strategically where our only good lies, that - when we have tired of our sinning - the very place where we can retreat to His favor is the only place He ever commanded its bestowal?
~ Psalm 133:3
Strange to link a blessing to a particular place, as though geographic location could be the only evidence that God’s promise is trustworthy; that His faithfulness is genuine. And yet, as one friend noted not long ago, the Promised Land’s desirability didn’t lie in the physical inheritance as much as in the fact that it served as a sign: proof that the Israelites were the people in a covenant relation with the One true God.
Part of the mystery of His favor is that He selects the very place where it will reside. He “commands” His blessing to fall over one place, and no other holds that special commendation. Zion alone was where He would grant “life forever.” The way is narrow –
Perhaps it is more of a grace than we realize: that God has not left us many options; that there aren’t “several ways” to exist within His covenant, or various means to discover His eternal rest. For if there were many opportunities, would we not, in our self-striving, come upon ways that were lesser? Instead, by His gracious choosing, there is but one, and all others lead to ‘death’ and destruction (see Proverbs 16:25) – that we might stay the course for which we were intended.
And yet, even when we choose a path which diverges, He has given us the grace of that fixed point. For while we may stray from that place of His blessing, there is – because He has established it as His desire – no time at which that location will be altered or removed:
“For the LORD has chosen Zion;
He has desired it for His habitation.
This is My resting place forever...”
~ Psalm 132:13-14
Perhaps the greatest gift is not His favor itself, His promise to ‘abundantly bless the provision’ (Psalm 132:15), but His specifically leaving immovable that place where He first declared His blessing to rest. He has delineated clearly where His favor abides, the one pathway by which we can enter into a faith relationship with Him. Yet perhaps even more profound a gift is His having left that location unchanged - because, understanding His wayward creatures to need a reference point, He has designed that His favor be awaiting us in the exact place from which we had departed it --
As C.S. Lewis makes the analogy, our sin's yield is like an arithmetic problem, in which the only way to contend with it is to ‘re-work it from that point of error.’ Does our Maker not know us that well, that He should foresee on our behalf the gracious provision? Has He not planned so strategically where our only good lies, that - when we have tired of our sinning - the very place where we can retreat to His favor is the only place He ever commanded its bestowal?
posted by Purple at 9:59 PM
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