in the house of my sojourn

Your statutes have been my songs

in the house of my sojourning.

Psalm 119:54

I’ll readily admit it. I’m at a place in my life where I can look back wistfully at more youthful times. I’ve got maybe two or three decades left in me at most. And as I look back, I can see that life is truly like a sojourn in a foreign land. The longer I live, the way I see this broken world continue to decline,  and the more I live with the restraints mortality brings, the more I find a clear longing in me for what C.S. Lewis called “another world”. And that longing logically leads to the conclusion that I was made for something more than this. We are built for eternity. We only sojourn briefly with mortality.

And the poetry of this verse is perfect. I live in the house of my sojourn. It is starting to weather and creak from the effects of over a half century of living. But the strength and conviction of scripture are my songs in this house! God’s Word and God’s Spirit keep me humming with joy. The outer man may be wasting away, but the inner man is powerfully ready to always be with Jesus in a new body... in a new heavens and a new earth!

There is much I must still do while I sojourn in “this old house”. And there is much more delight for me to experience.... delight in sharing life with family and friends... delight in the sheer enjoyment of the world God has made... delight in following Jesus and seeing His kingdom come... delight in the gospel renewing me and others even as mortality’s physical degrading keeps chipping away at me keeping me humbly delighting in God. I’ve got lots of songs still to sing in the house of my sojourn until I get to my real eternal home! I’ve got joy to be known that will carry me beyond all my present pains and sorrows. I’ve got God’s Word and His Spirit as faithful companions furnishing me the lyrics and the tunes as I follow, obey, and await the day when all will be made new again.