Dwelling in His House

Happy are those who dwell in your house! They never cease to praise you. Psalm 84:5

As Filipino immigrants in the United States, we decided to keep our native language be spoken in our home. My wonderful wife and I would like our daughters to keep on speaking Filipino national language, Tagalog, to keep one of our heritage. For our family to tell stories about our day to day lives gives us the feel of being at home, of being in the Philippines. By experience, other Filipino parents tell me it's a hard task to accomplish. Since children spend most of their time in school, they would be inclined to speak English and might forget even simple conversational Tagalog. Our elder daughter Praise is doing well in speaking in Filipino whenever she speaks to us and to her sister. She converses with our Filipino friends sometimes in Tagalog. Bless, our younger daughter, is having hard time to keep the native maybe because she is very young when we came here. She even, most of the time, would question what do we mean when we speak in Tagalog during our conversations. Given this situation, we still are resolute in speaking Filipino with our kids to feel we seem to be at home.

The psalmist exposed the language of heaven - Praising God. When you dwell in the house of God, you will never cease in giving worship to the living God. Or when you give Him glory and might, you dwell in His kingdom. When we speak the language of angels, we live in God's residence. This gives us the reflection that we are in heaven here on earth, when we raise our voices to acclaim Him as our God and King. When we live to praise His name, we speak heaven's dialect. When we do our job for His glory, we shout the Father's worship. When our day to day routine is done for His exaltation, we proclaim God's lordship over all. When your life spells Jesus' life, you declare the mighty King of Kings. Sometimes it would be hard to bless His name, sometimes it would be easy to give Him praise. But in both times, we can choose the way to God's address. It's not about to feel being in His house but it's truly being in His presence.

Keep speaking heaven's language. Never cease to give Him praise. We can dwell in God's house right here, right now.