“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.”
— Psalm 122:1 (King James Version)
There is a particular Sunday morning most of us know by heart. The alarm feels cruel, the week ahead is already crowding in, and the couch makes its quiet case for staying put. Then someone — a spouse, a child, an old friend, a text message — says the small, ordinary words: let's go. And something in us that had been slumping straightens up. We go. And nearly every time, we are glad we did.
Notice what the psalmist celebrates. Not the arriving, but the invitation. His joy begins the moment someone says, "Let us go." Gladness, it turns out, is often kindled by another person's welcome — and it grows when we say yes.
St. Augustine, the fourth-century bishop of Hippo who wandered far before he came home to faith, understood this restlessness intimately. He famously confessed that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. For Augustine, the deepest human joy was not a mood we manufacture but a homecoming we accept — the relief of arriving where we were always meant to be. The gladness in this verse is that relief, felt in advance.
Centuries later, Charles Spurgeon, the great London preacher of the 1800s who drew thousands with plain and tender words, called this psalm the song of a happy pilgrim. He noticed that the joy came not from duty but from delight — the traveler was not dragged toward worship but drawn. What a difference between I have to and I get to.
And Teresa of Ávila, the bold sixteenth-century Spanish reformer, insisted that God walks among the pots and pans — that the sacred is not fenced off in one holy hour but meets us in the whole of ordinary life. The "house of the LORD" is wherever we turn our attention Godward: a kitchen table, a hospital corridor, a quiet car at a red light.
So here is your encouragement for today. You do not have to feel glad first and then go. Often it works the other way: you go, and gladness meets you there. Be the one who says let us — who invites a neighbor, calls a friend, opens the door. Joy is contagious, and it usually starts with someone willing to speak the invitation out loud.
A Prayer for Today
Loving God, thank You for the gladness that meets us when we turn toward You. Make us people who welcome others, quick to say "let us go" and slow to stay behind. Meet us today in the ordinary places, and let Your joy straighten what is weary in us. Amen.