By Jim Golden

For many years I would get all choked up when I sang this one song, called “How lovely are your Dwelling Places” when I came to the part, “and the highway to Your city runs through my heart.”  I even spoke to my wife, Terry, about this most unusual, almost indescribable feeling.  I was at a loss to figure it out, but many times it would bring me to tears even after 20 years of singing the song.

In my Christian journey I have had to overcome many of the scars of the past.  One of the major obstacles to intimacy with God, as my heavenly father, was my lack of knowing the love and acceptance of an earthly father.  My mother, bless her heart, thought she was protecting me from unloving men by getting divorced and remarried five times.  I suppose she felt that one day she would finally find the right man to father her son.  However, as a result of her train of thought I grew up with a deep root of abandonment and rejection that I have, after 35 years as a Christian, still not been set free from totally.

I am sure that many of you reading this have your own similar story to tell, but in any case the outcome is the same no matter how different the actual story goes—our ability to experience the reality of God’s love, our ability to fully trust Him is hindered.  It is a very subtle, almost imperceptible issue in the lives of so many, because it hides in the shadows of our lives.  It may take decades to expose this hindering force in our lives because it is so deeply ingrained within our souls.  As a result, almost all of our interaction with God and those around us is affected and we are never fully able to entrust God or anyone else with our lives.  We seem unable to get that breakthrough in our lives that will finally bring us the freedom we so desperately desire.  This freedom becomes something we read about in the Bible and relegate to some future time in God’s timetable for our perfection.

However, the Scripture declares that today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow.  If only that were true in my life!  The devil is able to steal so much from us by putting all of God’s promises in the future.  Somehow we must embrace the salvation, love and acceptance of our God today, not tomorrow.  When tomorrow gets here it will be today!

As I sang the verse, “and the highway to your city runs through my heart,” the tears began to flow and suddenly I found myself prophesying to me, “No one builds a highway on land that he does not own, I have purchased you with My blood and you are Mine.”  Suddenly I realized why I had been so affected by that part of the song so deeply for so many years.  The Spirit of God within me was trying to set me free from the pain and the shame of my past with the truth of His love and acceptance for me.  It seemed to be a strange way for a breakthrough to come, but I cannot explain the full impact that such a personal experience can have on you.  I have not processed it fully, but something happened in my spirit that day that has brought me one step closer to the lover of my soul.  I pray that if you are in a similar boat you might hear a similar word that will set you free.  The highway to His city runs through your heart as well.  Hallelujah!

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