For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
(ESV)
Two things strike me: humility and irony.
Humility
The psalmist would rather be a doorkeeper, a servant, in God's house than a bona fide resident in the tents of the wicked. He humbly understands that it is more blessed to be near God than to seek position and status for oneself, and ultimately more gratifying besides.
He would rather spend one day with God than a thousand days apart from God, which leads us to the
Irony.
Ironically, those who are near to God are the ones who will inherit (what? yes!) eternal life. So you don't have to choose between one day of sunshine, joy and blessings in the presence of God or a thousand elsewhere. Rather, your options are a miserable-temporary-existence-that-is-headed-towards-death-and-destruction OR eternity in God's house, where you will be blessed beyond anything you can even hope for or imagine, forever and ever and always, amen.
If it were not so difficult for us mortals to comprehend the ratio of the days we live on earth in comparison with all eternity, there might be a much higher percentage of people willing to follow the Lord come what may.
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