We are now about 5 months into the World Race, and I am missing the comforts of home just a little bit extra than usual. I miss easy access to about anything, chocolate chip cookies with crisp milk, driving around and cranking up some good tunes, Monday night Bible study, hot showers, clothing variety, gym access, COFFEE.. the list can go on. I’m not going to lie to you, I am missing all of those comforts right about now. Despite all of those things that I am craving back home, the Lord reminded me how those are all material things that will satisfy me for a moment and then after that moment I am back to searching for satisfaction in something else. He reminded me that He is the only one who will fully satisfy me with fullness of joy.
I have seen and lived with people who have joy from the Lord and Him alone. My 14 year old friend named Sine from Swaziland lived in a small house with her siblings, cousins, mom, and grandma. She didn’t have much, but she had the joy of the Lord, and that’s all she needed. She taught me a lot about what appreciating life looks like. No matter the lot she was given in life, she continued to turn to the Lord for fulfillment and everlasting joy. And in reality we don’t deserve all the things that we have. You may say, well I have a job and I earned all that I have, so yeah I deserve it. But who was the One who got you the job in the first place? Who created jobs to even exist? Who created YOU?
All that we have here on earth is material, and gifted to us by God’s grace. We come into the world naked and we leave naked. You don’t bring a new car with you to heaven.
Why do we rely on these material things for happiness and fulfillment?
The only one who can fill those empty spaces and longings is God alone!
So when I begin to long for the comforts of home, I remind myself that this is not my home and everything that the Lord blesses me with is something that is temporary. I’m homesick for heaven!!! However many years I am given on this earth, I am not home until I am with Jesus. I remind myself that Jesus is the one thing I desire and all the other things He choses to bless me with are just added blessings but not the source of my happiness.
So I will continue to take cold bucket showers, wear the same three pieces of clothing, eat the same foods each day, rock the greasy hair-do, and sacrifice my daily coffee because Jesus is so much greater and much more satisfying than any of those things. His joy is everlasting and not fleeting. My joy is found in Him and not in those things.
Thank you God for your grace and for blessing us with things on earth that we don’t deserve in the first place. You are life itself, and apart from you we can do nothing. Thank you that when we come to you, you fill us up. I pray that we will choose you over anything or anyone else. We are thirsty for your living water that will allow us to never be thirsty again!!! I pray that we would take our eyes away from ourselves and focus them onto you. We are homesick for you, and long to be with you. Satisfy our longing souls until we meet you again. Amen.
