A Nest by the Altar

How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion. (Psalm 84:1-7 ESV).

All sorts of animals build nests, chimpanzees, orangutan, and gorillas build nests to sleep in each night, though birds are the chief nest builders, exhibiting great variety and ingenuity among the different species. The type of nest depends on the environment and the condition of the young when hatched. Altricial birds, whose young are generally blind, naked, and helpless on hatching, usually build higher and more elaborate nests than do precocial birds, whose young have a downy covering and are able to move about and feed themselves soon after emerging from the egg. Most sea birds, shore birds, and game birds do not build real nests but lay their eggs directly on a rocky ledge or in a shallow depression scooped out of the earth or sand. Woodpeckers and parrots nest inside hollow trees, as do the Old World hornbills; the male hornbill seals the female into the cavity, leaving an aperture only large enough for him to feed her as she incubates the eggs. Sand martins and kingfishers dig tunnels into shore banks, with enlarged nesting chambers at the ends. The stork's nest is a simple platform of sticks, and the eagle's aerie, built in tree tops or on cliffs, may be 5 to 12 feet in diameter; both birds add to their nests each year. As a general rule, the smaller the bird the more elaborate is the nest. The nest is usually bowl-shaped and composed of twigs, grass, leaves, and when available bits of cloth and string.

In every case, the nest is built for the security of the new hatchlings. No wonder the psalmist uses this image as he praises the safety he has found near the altar of God. Just as the newborn chicks have no protection outside of their nest, so we must place ourselves in the Lord’s hands. Isaac Rankin says that just outside his window is a large wire that carries a heavy current of electricity for light and power. It is carefully insulated at every pole and is out of common reach. "However," he says, "if I could lean out far enough to grasp it, death would be as swift as a lightning stroke. Yet the doves in my neighborhood suffer no harm when they perch on it. They fly from my windowsill, where I sometimes feed them, and preen in safety and contentment on the cables. The secret is that when they contact that wire, they touch nothing else. My danger would be that should I attempt to reach out and do so, the walls of my house would act as a ground, and the current would turn my body into a channel through which the electricity would flow in damaging power. Because they rest wholly upon the wire, they are unharmed. So God would have us seek our safety in complete surrender to His power and love. Will you rest in Him today? There is a nest at the altar of God just for you! Rest within His arms today.