Queen Victoria was the first monarch to take up residence in Buckingham Palace. The outward appearance was very splendid, but the chimneys smoked so very badly that the fires had to be allowed to run down and the place was very cold. Also the palace was built above a network of sewers, the largest of which ran directly under the kitchens. The risk of cholera was very real. These facts brought us no comfort as we watched water pouring vigorously out of our own washing machine and spreading in a puddle upon our floor last week.
Fortunately, our plumber rushed to the rescue and restored all things to good order within the hour. Queen Victoria had to wait longer to get things sorted out at her home.
We were meditating on Numbers 24:5 “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling-places, O Israel! Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.”
And we felt the Lord was saying;
I see My people in the full beauty of My redemptive purposes. See that your very dwelling places are radiant with My beauty. See that My church spreads out through every tribe and nation. Believers are like the very tree of life bringing beauty wherever they are planted. They will never lack the abundant blessings of My Spirit to pour out for others, and to make all things fertile and verdant where their influence comes.
Beautiful indeed are your dwelling places. For here my Spirit finds a welcome. The gardens of My people bring delight and rest to My eyes and perfume to My senses. As cedars beside the waters give strength and stability, a shade and a resting place, so the places where you dwell bring joy not only to you, but to My heart also as I abide with you.
Let Me breathe My Spirit increasingly into your home that it may indeed be a place of peace and truth, of challenge and of healing and overwhelming blessing to both yourselves and to all who enter.
