Houses of Prayer - Houses of Light

Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own. I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee. O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their heart unto thee: And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart, to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and thy statutes, and to do all these things, and to build the palace, for the which I have made provision. And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the Lord your God. And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the Lord, and the king. (1 Chronicles 29:10-20 KJV)

In anticipation of temple construction, David offers a remarkable prayer, a prayer that serves as a template or model for each of us as God's stewards. The prophet Isaiah later refers to that very temple as God's 'house of prayer' (Isa 56:7). And David himself anticipates that reality, declaring in Psalm 18:6, 'In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.' A house of prayer.
In Psalm 18:28, David uses imagery that permeates Scripture, saying, 'My God turns my darkness into light.' An unmistakable message. A house of light. Pastor John Timmer relates a simple story about a house in need of light:

Once upon a time a man lived in a house without a window. Naturally, it was very dark inside his house.

One day he said to himself, 'I'm sick and tired of living in a dark house. I want to get rid of the darkness. I want light instead of darkness.'

So what did he do? He took a large pail, filled it with darkness, carried it outside, and emptied it. Then we went back into the house and did the same thing all over again. He filled the pail with darkness, carried it outside, and emptied it. He did this all day. But by the end of the day his house was just as dark as it had always been.

Then the man said to himself, 'This isn't going to work. This is not the way to get rid of the darkness. There must be another way. But how?'

That night he went to bed, very tired and very sad. But when he woke up the next morning, the answer came to him. 'Now I know how to get rid of the darkness,' he said. He took a big hammer, knocked a big hole in the outside wall, and made a window. Through this window the bright sunlight came pouring into his house.

Our lives are like a house without a window. It's dark inside. To make it light inside, we need a window, a window through which God's light will come pouring into our lives.

Prayer is such a window. Without prayer our lives are dark. With prayer, our lives are light. Each time we pray, God's light comes pouring into our lives.

Today God dwells in clay houses (see 2Co 4:7) - houses that nonetheless reflect his glory to a sin-darkened world. Like breath the light not only pours in but gets exhaled right back out! Houses of light; houses of prayer.