If we played a word game together, I wonder how many words we could list beginning with Home? Here are a few I found (with the help of Google search) to get us started: Homecoming, Homeless, Homeschool, Homesick, Hometown, Homestretch, Homemade, Homemaker, Home Alone… 

If you were to linger over those words, which one(s) do you notice standing out and what feelings are you aware of stirring up within you? 

Recently a fellow cross-cultural worker shared some frustration, after returning from a vision trip to determine her new ministry location, “I don’t actually think I’ll ever feel like I belong. Anywhere.” 

Her words hung in the air, and I let them settle heavily within me. They are words that probably most of us could voice, on our journeys of planting and replanting ourselves in homes around the globe. They seemed relevant and connected to Brene Brown’s insights on belonging: 

“Because we can feel belonging only if we have the courage to share our most authentic selves with people, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” Brene says that when we first “belong to ourselves” then we can take that sense of belonging with us wherever we go.  

“Fitting in,” she says, “is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” 

I love the freedom and sense of “homecoming” that settles in with the realization that our belonging isn’t determined by outside forces but, rather, by forces within. 

Richard Foster writes in Coming Home: An Invitation to Prayer, that God “is inviting you--and me--to come home, to come home to where we belong, to come home to that for which we were created.” 

In Psalm 23, we can visualize the safety and security that being at home with our Shepherd provides, no matter what unpleasant circumstances or dangers we face: “He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near the quiet brook of bliss.” (v. 2, The Passion Translation) 

In Psalm 132, speaking of Zion, God says, “This is My sanctuary, My resting place, forever and ever; I will remain here, for this is what I have desired.” (v, 14, The Voice Translation) 

Because of the establishment of our eternal home with God our Father--made possible through Jesus--we know that where He rests, we also can rest. Our belonging is both with Him and in Him.  

Further, the Apostle Paul also amazingly wrote of God’s choosing to make His home in us through His Holy Spirit: “In Him you are being built together, creating a sacred dwelling place among you where God can live in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22, The Voice Translation)

True homecoming means that our Resting Place is also His Resting Place. Belonging. Forever and ever. Amen.