Please don't refresh this page.
We are submitting all your information.


This takes few seconds.
It will redirect after submission.
Devotional

He is My Home

by SARAH DEAL HOME Lack of “home”
He is My Home
“Lord, through all the generations, You have been our home!”
Psalms 90:1

Homesickness. It sneaks up unexpectedly. It hits while sipping a cold Coca-cola and watching American Idol on a muggy night with friends in their air-conditioned living room. Or while getting a package from home padded with wadded up Walmart bags… and keeping the bags. (True story!) The once commonplace items inside the US Embassy building seem oddly comforting and awe-inspiring. Water fountains that dispense not just water, but cold water that’s drinkable! Outlets in familiar shapes that charge our computer plugs without clunky adapters that have become so normal to us.  


But homesickness works both ways. It’s ambidextrous and reaches into both our worlds. Once we land back in the Land of Plenty (as we came to call the US during our home assignments), our hearts again feel the pain of a traveler who longs for home. Again, unexpected sounds and sights awaken our senses to something left behind, something missing. An episode of NCIS opens with a scene of Arabs worshipping at a Mosque. My heart aches for my neighbors in Asia who have yet to accept Christ. My sons ask for rice at McDonald’s and we must convince them every time that we are 100% sure they don’t have it. When we eat at Asian restaurants, they are convinced that Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce is most certainly stored somewhere in the back (and they’re always heartbroken that it isn’t)! 


Now that our family has returned to the US for an extended and indefinite period, it has been good of God to reveal my homesickness as a gift from Him. It reminds me that this world, even the great parts I have come to know and love, is not my home. That this life, even at its best, is tainted by sin and death and the enemy. No city, no village, no neighborhood, no physical location, will ever satisfy this soul completely. My home was always and only meant to be found in Him and with Him. May I allow God to use my homesickness to draw my heart closer to His own and find my true Home always in Him.


Closing Prayer
Father, through all generations, in all places, You truly are our Home! We praise You for Your constant drawing of our hearts. When we are tempted to cling to this world and its temporal comforts, help us to look up to You. May our longings be directed to the source of all that is good, to the One who created us and redeemed us for relationship. Thank you that homesickness is a gift and good sign that we are loving people and places where you have sent us to share Your love to those You love! Help us to lean hard on You and to find our place, our rest, our Home, in You. Amen.
Resources
Scripture: Exodus 2 through Deuteronomy Our key verse from Psalm 90:1 was penned by none other than Moses, one who was keenly aware of the weight of the word “home!” Moses knew very well the realities of culture stress, being a foreigner in a strange land, wandering outside the land of his birth, and longing for a land that was just beyond his reach. I found it very encouraging to review the life of Moses starting in Exodus Chapter Two. Remember the baby in the basket floating in the reeds of the Nile river? Take time to read on through to the end of Deuteronomy and take note of all the transition in Moses’ life. I pray you are encouraged, as I was, by Moses’ conclusion that his ultimate dwelling place, his ultimate soul’s craving for home, could only be satisfied in the Lord!
Question for Reflection

Think of a cliché or anecdote that includes the word “home.” How could this give new insight to how God wants to meet the deepest need for “home” in your own soul?

Comments
Sarah Deal
January 22, 2021

There’s a sign hanging in our house that reads: “Wherever we are together, that is Home.” We have used it with our boys to encourage a sense of family closeness in the midst of a transient global life. God has reminded me lately that it is so much truer of Him, that I can rest in the fact that I am always at home with Him, in the deepest sense of the word. I am fully known and loved and accepted and understood, He speaks my language and I need not explain the inner workings of my culture or my heart to Him, for He knows my innermost thoughts even more than I do! Yes, wherever He and I are together (and He is ever with me!), that is truly my Home!