My Heart, His Habitation

I have a tradition that I have had for many, many years - every December I start praying and asking the Lord to give me a Scripture verse for the coming new year.  The Lord has always been faithful to give me one and as it has turned out, that Scripture becomes something the Lord works out in my heart during that entire year. 

For the year of 2013, the Scripture the Lord gave me was:

"The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation:  he is my God and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him."

Exodus 15:2

 

The particular part of the verse that the Lord really zeroed in on was:

 

"I will prepare him an habitation"

 

As is usually my custom when I'm working through a verse, I took out my Strong's Concordance and looked up the word habitation.  Here is what I found:

 

5115 - navah - to rest, as at home; implied idea of beauty (5116); to celebrate (with praises); keep at home

 

5116 - naveh - at home; hence (by impl. of satisfaction) lovely; a home of God (temple) comely, dwelling (place) pleasant place.

 

Donna's translation:  "I will prepare Him a beautiful and pleasant place where He will feel at home and be able to rest."

 

This "place" is my heart.

 

 

I began to meditate and ponder on this.  One day, sometime in February, I came home from being out most of the day and as I walked into my apartment, I said to the Lord - "I love this home.  I just love my apartment, Lord, and I am so thankful for it.  I love coming home to this place.  It gives me such delight and peace to be here."  I sensed the Lord speak so clearly to me in saying - "Donna, that is how I want to feel - at home in your heart." 

 

I began to sense what the Lord wanted to do in me.  He was looking for me to prepare Him that habitation in my heart and to do that, I needed to let Him reveal my heart to me, which is exactly what He has been doing these past months of 2013.  I have written quite a bit about the condition of my heart on this blog and it is because of that very work.

 

The Lord frequently speaks to me in song and the words of this song became my prayer the first half of 2013:

 

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary.

Pure and holy, tried and true

With thanksgiving, I'll be a living

sanctuary for you.

 

 

Sanctuary....habitation - a place I want God to inhabit.  I wrote this prayer in my journal - "Lord, reveal my heart and clean house - prepare my heart as a sanctuary for you."

 

In July, this song became my prayer:

 

Holy Spirit, thou art welcome in this place.

Holy Spirit, thou art welcome in this place.

Omnipotent Father, of mercy and grace,

Thou art welcome in this place.

 

 

"This place" was my heart.

 

 

As I look back now over the past year, it all makes sense and it all comes together.  God has been faithfully answering my prayer.  He has brought me closer to Himself and done such a work in my heart, I am in awe with the wonder of it.  He has taught me much about living in the "here and now", about slowing down to see the gifts and blessings he bestows on me daily.  He has taught me how to seek and find Him in all that my day holds.  He has taught me to give thanks in and for all things. This "thanksliving" has changed not only my heart, but my life.  He has wooed me with His gifts, but also with the greatest gift, the gift of Himself. 

 

There is still much in my heart that needs cleansing and changing but I trust -

 

"The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever: forsake not the works of thine own hands."

Psalm 138:8

 

O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."

Psalm 107:1