God as Roommate (a Psalm 27:4 paraphrase)

 

One thing I ask from the Lord,

    this only do I seek:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

    all the days of my life,

to gaze on the beauty of the Lord

    and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4 

 

God, I have a big request. It’s so big,

That if I can only have One Thing, I’ll take this one.

I don’t want a present, even an expensive present,

Because that isn’t intimate enough.

I don’t want to be sitting alone in my own house

Holding my expensive present and remembering You.

I don’t want You to ever be a memory.

 

 

I want to be sitting with YOU,

Enjoying You Yourself.

Every moment of every day.

Have You figured it out yet?

 

 

I am asking to live with You.

I am asking to move in with You.

I am asking for a key to Your house,

I’m asking to register Your address as my address.

I want to be roommates. I don’t want any personal space from You.

I want to share the same toothbrush.

I want to smell You and smell like You.

I want to be ridiculously, crazy close.

I don’t want to visit, not even a long visit.

I want You to be the place I come home to.

 

 

Perhaps nothing in this world affects us more

Than where we live and who we live with.

I want You to affect me that much.

I want my emotions to be affected by Yours, every single day,

Because Your frown or smile is the one I see across the breakfast table

Every single morning.

I want the distance I have to travel

To every single person and place

To be measured by how far it is from You

Because You are my starting out point

And my finishing up point.

I want You to be the One I text and call the most

Because You are the One most intimately involved in all my doings,

The One I need to text when I’m on my way home or ask if I should pick up groceries.

 

 

And why, You ask? It’s not a necessary evil.

I have lived with people I didn’t want to live with

Because I had no other option.

That’s not the case with You.

The reason I want to move in with You

And never move out again

Is not Your house, it’s You.

I’d rather live in a paper bag with You than in a palace without You.

 

 

I just want to wake up in the morning and see You.

I want to go to bed at night seeing You.

I want to look up all day, every day, and see You.

Not just a glance to check that You’re still there, but to gaze,

To fix my eyes on You and flood my soul

With how wonderful You are

And how wonderful it is to be in Your presence.

And not just to gaze, but to seek,

To be filled up full and yet more hungry than ever before,

Because the more I feast on You, the more my hunger for You grows.

I want to spend my spare time doing that,

To spend my working time doing that,

To spend my sleeping time doing that.

I have lived all kinds of seasons and spent all kinds of days,

But I want the common, unifying factor amidst all my days

To be that I spent them with You.

 

 

I want to live in the thin place between heaven and earth,

The place where earth and heaven meet,

Your “temple.”

I want to be that place. I want there to be a heavenly portal that opens wherever I go,

Because the angels ascend and descend between heaven and earth

On the staircase that is the Son of Man,

And the Son of Man is the One living inside of me.

So that even if I sleep on a stone in the desert like Jacob did,

The ladder comes down and touches earth right there where I sleep

And the angels come party all night long, celebrating Jesus-in-me.

I want any humans in my proximity to be blessed

Because God moves in when I move in, that Immanuel Miracle,

That God-inside-of-me.

 

 

I know I am asking big, crazy big.

I know what a big thing it is to ask any human, “can I move in with you?”

How much more to knock on God’s front door with a suitcase?

But here I am, all of me, just as I am,

Standing on Your front steps

Confident in Your answer.

Because You asked first. You came knocking on my door,

Inviting Yourself over for dinner,

Wanting to be my constant companion

And save me from myself.

 

 

David asked big, but it was still so small.

He asked to be within reach of Your physical temple.

He asked to spend all the days of his earthly life worshipping You.

You said,

 

 

“I like it, but I want to do better than that.

I will come die for you

So you can BE My temple

And not just live in My house but BE My house

So that no exile in the wilderness can ever separate You from My presence and house again

Because where you go, My house goes too

And we don’t just live with each other but inside each other.

And ‘all the days of your life’ isn’t long enough for Me.

I didn’t create Adam and Eve to number their days.

Let’s go back to Plan A: you and Me, forever, inseparable by death.

I want this so much I will die for it.”

 

 

You are crazy. You wouldn’t just tolerate me as Your roommate,

but die to make me Your House?

No one has ever loved me like You.

No one has ever wanted me like You.

How can I help but respond?

 

 

So if You are knocking at my front door, I am opening it,

And if You are opening Your own front door,

Find me on Your front steps with a suitcase.

Let there be no distance between us

All the days of my life.