the oasis blog

I was just sitting on my parents front porch watching the rain come down. What had started as a drizzle, quickly grew into a downpour. It was as if a colossal sponge was being wrung out over the neighborhood. A kid biked past on the street in front of me, umbrella in one hand and other on the handlebars, seemingly undisturbed by the showers. It seemed so funny to me. People continuing as normal, just getting wet in the process of whatever they needed to do. The strangest thing was how odd this was to me. Something as simple as rain, something I grew up in and around and even grew to despise was now so entertaining and comforting. It felt so peaceful: maybe it was my parents just inside or the fact I felt safe with my dog beside me, or the fact that I felt no pressing need to do or be anything in their presence.

Home. Many long for it and many search for it. People spend their life savings improving it and their lifetime investing in it. It’s where you find rest. It’s where you fit.

So what do you do when there is no location that meets those needs? When you don’t seem to “fit” anywhere?

David was a man in transit, spending years on the run from Saul. He made his dwellings in cities unfamiliar, in caves, with people who were drawn to him because of stories they heard. He had no front porch to sit on. Where was home for him.

Psalm 84

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.

Despite his transient lifestyle and lack of comfort, it wasn’t home he longed for: it was something altogether different. He continues in verse 4:

Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.

I’m finding more that my parents house feels less like home. It has been a funny transition and strange to think of the place I grew up so differently. I remember first moving away and missing it so much. I sat in my new room in Clovis, a thousand miles from everything I knew, but it might as well have been a million. I remember praying, “Lord, help this to feel like home, Help this to feel like that place of comfort” In His gentle love He told me something I didn’t expect to hear, “This isn’t home. Home is my presence.”

We were not made to be bound to objects, to locations, even to people. All are a part of the journey, partners for different seasons and lengths, intended to run besides us. However, these people and places, even when God given, were never meant to be the goal. The moment “the thing” becomes the finish line, we lose sight of why we are running: Him. He is the goal and the aim: the ultimate prize.

I have wrestled with the thought of home many times in the past 18 months. Why God would remove me from what was so familiar? Each time God brings me back to His gentle whisper: home is my presence. Would I have pursued Him, as He desired, if I had still felt so comfortable?

David learned the lesson that the Lord desires us to learn: we will never truly be comforted outside of His presence. Even the best of circumstances cannot compare with where He is.

David continues in verse 10:

For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
blessed is the one who trusts in you!

I am still learning, but finding rest in Him is becoming less foreign and more of my focus. Near or far, rain or shine, home is not far. Its chasing after me with an everlasting love: in pursuit of my heart and my devotion, changing me with every mile.

Home is finding me.

In coffee shops and conference rooms.

And on occasion, even front porches.