You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
- A guy named David... a long time ago;
Psalm 16:11
This verse popped up on a friend's Facebook wall? page? feed? I don't know... anyway, I saw it this morning. As (too) often happens, I read the first words and familiarity caused me to skip the rest; on about my day.
But for some reason I paused. Then I went back in for a re-read. (This is free, and not the point of this post, but a great thing about living is we always have opportunity to pause, then go back for a re-read. I realize we cannot truly go back; we cannot relive yesterday. But we can always reflect, learn, extract the joy and pain, and choose to grow.)
Anyway, I slowly worked my way back through this verse. I am always careful to not read into scripture what is not there. We each bring our experiences and biases to the Book, so we must take such care. If scripture has a living, breathing element to it - and I believe it does - we must let it breathe, speak and soak.
In my re-read, I was struck. Impacted. You make known the path of life... Wait, I want to know I'm on the right path. I want my journey to count. I want my life's path to mean something. How incredible to be on the path cut by the Path-maker himself.
In your presence is fullness of joy... Yep, that sounds pretty good too. Not kind of joy. Not happy when things are good joy. Fullness of joy. I'm in.
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore... It is easy to miss something key here. Pleasure is not the point. Proximity is. The right hand is a picture of perfect fellowship. It is the place of closest friendship and intimacy. The greatest pleasure is that of relationship.
Familiarity put me in fast-forward. I'm thankful something (Someone) pressed my pause button. And I realized:
God, this is just what I'm looking for... (and please forgive me for ending a sentence with a preposition).
For now...
D
