Our tears, sweetened by heaven’s raindrops, cover the desert landscape with pools of comfort.
We’ve been thinking our way through Psalm 84. There’s a great deal here about feeling at home in the Lord’s presence. The psalmist says, “My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord,” but it isn’t the place, it’s the Person he really wants. “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (v 2). And he doesn’t just want an occasional visit, as the Israelites did three times a year. No, he says, I want to “dwell in Your house” (v 4). The word “dwell” can be translated as “remain, continue, abide.” The psalmist wants to move in and stay there! Who of God’s people wouldn’t want to live with Him, surrounded by His praising saints! One day there is better than a thousand anywhere else (v 10). But, of course, life down here isn’t quite like that. The word “tabernacle” is a clue (instead of the more permanent “temple”) that we’re still on our way home, pilgrims and strangers traveling through a foreign land. What then? In our last study, we thought about the beautiful words of pilgrimage, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion” (v 5). But the psalm continues, “As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools” (v 6). Baca is the Valley of Weeping. But the picture is a tender one. It’s as if the tears we weep, when we’re comforted by God, become pools of refreshment for those following. Like Paul’s description of the God “who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor 1:4). And thus we make spiritual progress: “They go from strength to strength” (Ps 84:7), “from faith to faith” (Rom 1:17), and “from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18).