Musings from doubt

I was reading Psalm 103 today in The Message version: He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.      He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.      He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. I was struck by the words in these verses about what God does for us - crowns us, wraps us, renews our youth. It reminds me of how what the beauty and fashion industry would seek to sell us - adornments, clothes, everlasting youth from beauty treatments. Yet these are things that God has given to us. It reminded me of Isaiah 61: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,      because the Lord has anointed me      to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,      to proclaim freedom for the captives      and release from darkness for the prisoners, [ a ] 2  to proclaim the year of the Lord ’s favour      and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3       and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a cr

During the lockdown, I have felt that my life has shrunk. I work at my desk in the day. In the evening I'm in the house. I venture outside at lunchtime into the garden. The weekends are similar, a trip out to Princes Risborough to get the mower fixed was high adventure. I am used to going to work every day on the bus, a little shopping on the way to work perhaps, a walk at lunchtime, maybe the library at the way home. At the weekend I might have a short break, or visit family. And there were holidays! when we actually stayed somewhere else for a week or two. Now life seems restricted. 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 The psalmist (David) wanted to live in the 'house of the LORD' or the temple all his life. At the time of David, there was no temple, so it would have been a tabernacle. A big tent, but