(Worship leader: A Korah family psalm to be playing on that guitar from Gath.)
The sweetest place on earth
Is your house,
Yahweh of heaven’s armies.
My soul longs,
Famished,
Ravenous
For the place where Yahweh is worshiped.
Every beat of my heart,
Every cell in my body
Yearns for the God who explodes with life.
I envy the sparrow
At home in your house,
The swallow nesting
And raising her young
Near your altar,
Yahweh of heaven’s armies —
My King,
My God.
How sweet it would be
To live in your house.
It’d be a non-stop praise party.
The sweet life leans on you,
Is oriented toward you —
One life-long pilgrimage with God as goal.
Such pilgrim people journey through
The Valley of Weeping.
It’s unavoidable.
But they change it
To a place welling up with water.
Tears turn to refreshing rain
And reviving pools.
They become stronger and stronger
The closer they get to Zion,
Where they’ll meet with God.
Hear my prayer,
Yahweh, God of heaven’s armies.
Listen close,
God of Jacob’s descendants.
Look smilingly on your Messiah.
There’s no comparison:
A day of worship in your house
Is far better than a thousand
Soaking up the sun
In some tropical paradise.
I’d rather clean toilets in my God’s house
Than sip champagne in mansions
Bought with blood.
Yahweh my God
Is the sun I long to soak in,
The wealth I long to indulge in.
Yahweh’s smiles are sunbeam bright,
His approval the greatest wealth.
He holds back nothing good
From those whose pilgrimage
Takes no detours.