A House within a House

Psalm 9

I had occasion recently to walk through a movie set under construction (for a Mike Myers flick called The Love Guru, I was told). Already there was what appeared to be a complete house, built inside the set. I thought of that house-within-a-house setup in reading this Psalm.

The larger set is nothing less than God’s universal plan, history, time and space, the whole thing; and God’s working through it. For much of the Psalm, the poet celebrates this ‘holy history’ (as some call it), recounting the great deeds of God (verses 4-12), in which he brings both salvation and judgment to bear upon the real circumstances of this world, from his heavenly throne (verse 7).

The house within this spectacular set is the psalmist’s life and predicament. The Psalmist experiences God entering his life and setting, in this smaller, more personal scale, in the same way in which he acts in the larger scene. His response to this experience doesn’t just praise God for that particular action, but leads him, throughout the Psalm, to praise the God who acts for others in the same way as God has acted for him, and throughout history. There is no neat delineation here; his perception of God in history makes him think of his own circumstances, and his experience of God in his life-setting leads him to the expanded view. What a vibrant faith!

Prayer:
Lord give me a sense of connectedness of my life and circumstances to your larger scene, that I may fulfill my purpose within your great story, however small my role may seem. It is significant to you, and I thank you. Through Christ. Amen.