I, like many young adults my age, have struck out on my own and live by myself in an apartment. Mine happens to be on the outskirts of Houston…just close enough to make the commute downtown and just far enough to avoid some of the worst traffic and best shopping. 😉
As I have been packing up my whole 700 square feet of living space, I have been toying with the idea of Home. Where is my home? Is it in this little apartment? Is it in the house that I spent the most time growing up in?
The word Home brings many immediate thoughts to mind including house, dwelling, shelter and maybe even family. It usually has a warm, feel-good connotation and many of you might be smelling fresh-baked cookies just thinking about home right now!
I have noticed a strange sense of home-sickness for the last couple of years. I can almost compare it to a type of reverse-empty nest syndrome. I can’t miss my children because I haven’t had any yet. I can’t be bored with retirement because I’m still working. I guess one way to describe it might be a restlessness. I almost feel uncomfortable in my own skin because I don’t think I was created to be in it. (I mean if I was supposed to be in any skin at all I’m sure it should be been that of Reese Witherspoon or Debra Messing or something,right???…just kidding.)
I guess what I’m trying to get at is the fact that there must be more. I don’t think I will be able to completely rest until the Lord invites me to enter into it. I can try and fake it. I can try and create the rest I long for it in this broken world. But, I don’t think complete rest can ever be REALLY achieved unless this rest takes place in the presence of God and in the Home he has been preparing for us.
God knew what He was doing when He created us. He left us with this God-shaped hole that can only be filled with Him. He gave us the examples of family and home and church so that we would keep searching and find Him in them. He also left us with the greatest example of all in His own Son.
My prayer will no longer be for rest and peace in the world and in my own life. I want my prayer to be for thirst and hunger! I want to feel the occasional twinge of homesickness so that I can be reminded that there is more and that there is a Race to be run in the mean time!
