The Trophy Room

4-8 Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest at home in your place!
   We expect our fill of good things in your house, your heavenly manse.
   All your salvation wonders are on display in your trophy room...
      Dawn and dusk take turns calling, "Come and worship." 
(Psalm 65:4-8)

There is a difference between being a "visitor" and being "at home" in someone's home.  The visitor may only come as far as the living room or kitchen - two of the most common areas we congregate in our homes.  Seldom do they go to the bedroom or look inside our closets.  Even one that enters our living room is not quite as "at home" as the one that sits at the kitchen counter with us, chatting freely about their day. 

Our psalmist points us toward being more than a "visitor" in God's house - in his presence.  Sometimes we barely make it to the front room sofa in God's presence!  We experience him in a stiff, impersonal manner.  We don't feel comfortable with him and we certainly don't feel comfortable finding out what the rest of his presence might be like!  In fact, we might feel a little conspicuous in his presence - like his eyes are searching us!  If that is how we are experiencing God, I think we are probably experiencing him as just a "guest" in our lives.

When we really learn to make ourselves "at home" in his presence, we come to a place where we recognize that we have access.  The "visitor" to my home doesn't really get to know much about me until they come into the kitchen, see my bookshelves in the den, spending some time browsing through the rooms of my home.  We are given access to all God is and has - but we have to get off the couch and explore!  He provides our "fill" of good things - but if we stay on the couch with God, we will never find out what good stuff he has prepared for us in the kitchen!

The psalmist refers to God having a "trophy room" where his trophies are on full display.  Did you know that you also have a trophy room?  It is deep in your heart - the place where you put on full display the many trophies of your life.  A trophy is simply a memorial - it displays some honor or conquest.  I have a "plastic ship" that I "won" in some trivia game on a cruise once.  Not really all that fantastic of a "trophy" but it was my first cruise, I had such a blast, and it serves as a memorial of those memories!

God displays trophies on our behalf, too.  Trophies are treasures - they are something we relish a long while after the "experience" is over.  God has a way of turning tragedies into trophies.  Guess what - it is not in the safety of the sofa that we find the transition from tragedy to trophy!  It is in the intimacy of the "kitchen" of experiencing God's presence that we are filled with the stuff that turns tragedy around into the trophy he wants to display.

So, I am not sure what trophies you have on display today, but I know God has may displayed on our behalf.  We just need to give him access, step into his presence with both feet, and see what he has prepared for us today.  The "treasure" of today is found in the turning of our tragedy into a trophy!  Only he can do that.  


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