2 Samuel 7:1-7
A friend was facing the difficult decision of transitioning his wife to a memory care facility. After many years of declining health, she needed a safe place with the constant care of medical professionals. The choice was so hard to make. After her move, my friend visited every day to remind her of his love. Once I was there when he was putting his spouse to bed for the night. “Will you take me home? I want to go home,” she said to him with pleading eyes. “I want to go home.”
Almost all of us long for home.
Maybe you grew up in a loving home that provided you with safety and rest. Perhaps you lived in an awful home filled with addiction or abuse. Most homes lie somewhere in between. You may have experienced great love, and still left with plenty of baggage. Whatever our experience has been, this longing lives deep in our bones. Something in us says, “I want to go home.”
In today’s passage, David has received a place of rest from all of his enemies. He knows God has given him this, so he wants to do something in return: build a home for God. But the Almighty reminds David that God doesn’t need a human home. God is the home for which we long.
Frederick Buechner said, “I believe that it is when [Christ’s] power is alive in me and through me that I come closest to being truly home, come closest to finding or being found…I cannot claim that I have found the home I long for every day of my life, not by a long shot, but I believe that in my heart I have found, and have maybe always known, the way that leads to it.”
Wherever you are, no matter how sad, lonely, or afraid, you have a home in God.
Consider
What stirs in you when you hear the word “home”? What does it mean to you that you are always at home with God?
Pray
God, thank you for being the home for which we long. Amen.