"What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem." Psalm 84:5, NLT
The picture of worshipping on a journey is very different than how we see worship today. Our culture's picture of worship has us standing in one place. Often a distraction will come, hit us in the face and we stop worshipping. In fact, that's the way many of us live our lives. Life happens while we just kind of float along enjoying our surroundings. Then circumstances will hit us in the face. We get blindsided by a circumstance an endue sitting down in the valley for a good cry. Hopefully, we get back up again.
Psalm 84 gives us a different picture. In Psalm 84 the pilgrim passes through the valley of weeping with hope for what is to come. People with a pilgrim's heart know that whatever our circumstances, whatever we pass through, it has a greater purpose.
The Apostle Paul showed us his pilgrim's heart when he wrote, "I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one ting: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us" (Philippians 3:12-14).
How can we have a pilgrim's heart like Paul? It starts with our PERSPECTIVE. It's hard to have perspective when your circumstances are overwhelming you. It's hard to see past the present pain to the hope of what lies ahead. This is why worship is so important. God is so good and faithful that when we worship Him, even from a place of desperation and pain, he changes our perspective. Tommy Tenney in his book God's Eye View writes... "Worship is the process of stretching your arms to the heavens in the universal sign of surrender and desperation. It is the way earthbound creatures rivet the attention of their heavenly Creator. When you worship, it is as if you look at your heavenly Father and say, 'I don't like the way things look down here, Daddy. Would you lift me up? I want to see things from your point of view.'"
I believe that is why Psalm 84 is so centered around worship. Without the perspective that worship brings us we will have little hope of making it out of the valley of weeping.
The second key to having a pilgrim's heart is to find our strength in the Lord. Psalm 84 says "What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord" (84:5) and promises that they will continue to grow stronger (84:7). Even when we are at our weakest that we can lay hold of that promise. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 God tells Paul, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." Stop trying to make the journey in your own strength, with your own intelligence an your own conjured up joyfulness. Be humble and honest with God about your weakness. You'll find his grace in that place of humility and honesty.
The third key is to understand that the trials and sorrow in our journey can become the stepping stones to greater intimacy with God. And this is after all the reason for our journey. To know Him more. To live in His presence. There is something about our human nature that easily forgets or takes for granted the joy and glory of being in God's presence. Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, God uses pain as a megaphone to get our attention. We hear God in our pain. We are purified in our pain as we learn to submit to God and die to our own selfish desires. And we come to know him in a deeper way. The more we know him the more the circumstances in our life lose their power to stun and immobilize us. Another quote from Tenney says, "There is a place in God, a secure path in the Living way, where you cannot be touched no matter how much Satan tries to reach and claw at you. It is a level of intimacy with divinity that would be fatal to anyone but God's children and the angels who serve him."
For me, the greater depth of intimacy with God that has come out of my suffering has been like the refreshing springs that Psalm 84 talks about. ""What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping it will become a place of refreshing springs. he autumn rains will clothe it with blessings." (84:5-6). I wouldn't have the refreshing springs without the valley of weeping. When I read this psalm I imagine myself on a journey. I see myself passing through the valley of weeping, my tears speckling the dusty trail. But I press on and soon the specks of tears become puddles, then pools and then rivers as God sees me from heaven, hears me cry out to him in desperate worship and his heart is torn for his child. His tears rain down and join with mine creating rivers of renewal and intimacy with him.
You see our hope is not just the future hope of dwelling in his glory for eternity. We have a present hope of knowing him now in the midst of our journey. We can have his perspective through worship, we can know his strength in our weakness and in our suffering and pain we can come to deeper place of intimacy with our loving Father and Creator.
