Homesick or Home?

If they had been thinking with [homesick] remembrance of that country from which they were emigrants, they would have found constant opportunity to return to it. But the truth is that they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country. Hebrews 11:15,16 (Amplified Bible)

Our minds usually go in one of two directions. Either we are homesick for what use to be or yearning and aspiring for what lies ahead. As believers, Heaven is our ultimate destiny but until we get there our life will entail many places or countries of God’s choosing. The journey we are on has been designed and brought about by God. How we walk that journey is our choice. Resistance to change will become a stumbling block that makes the way more painful and difficult.

I think back to the children of Israel in the wilderness and how often they voiced their longing to return to Egypt. Egypt! Their former place of slavery and misery. What were they thinking? The tests and trials of their wilderness wanderings made what should have been unappealing very appealing. The wilderness was filled with the unknown and unwanted, therefore they wanted what they left. But no matter how many times they revisited Egypt in their mind, God never allowed them to go back. Any trips back were only in their imaginations and heart. How like them I can be at times.

Although the wilderness was not the promised land, it was the place God had them at the present. But too often they failed to embrace it as such and follow God with abandon. How different the journey would have been if they had! They could have experienced the reward of anticipating God’s interventions and involvement rather than begrudging the changes in their life.

For them, it was change of location. For me, it is change of relationships. God knows my mind still houses thoughts of homesickness for individuals who use to be a part of my life and no longer are. While the memories of them will always be a part of me, God is desiring that I will now embrace the individuals who now intersect my world. They are His present gift to me and He doesn’t want me to miss the joy of knowing them and growing with them. He implores me to stop resisting and start resting in the place He has me and with the people He has given me. May I dare to do so!

Father, help me to turn my eyes toward You and then to look around at all You have given me and done for me in this present place of my life. Replace my feelings of homesickness with a sense of coming home! Amen.