Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-096 Sunday 27 May 2001

Reading: PSALM 63 – LONGING FOR HOME

(From ‘Encounter with God’ Bible Reading Notes)

Some say, home is where the heart is. Where is your heart today?

Millions of people who come from the Two-Thirds World are today far from their homes. Some are in places totally different in climate, culture, and language. In many instances, they find the inhabitants, and even the environment, openly hostile to them. One example is a man from the sun-kissed Philippines, who is learning to cope with the indescribable cold in Alaska because he has to earn a living. Most of these people are overseas contract workers. Other, less fortunate ones, are the refugees of war, famine, or political or religious persecution.

Of the few that I have met, most have a tremendous longing for home. ‘It’s very lonely here, elder sister’, a fellow Filipina said as she cried on my shoulder at our first meeting in Germany. ‘If only I could go home now’, a young man said wistfully. ‘My child is sick, but I can’t leave’. He donned his sunglasses to hide his tears.

King David had a similar experience. He wrote this psalm while he was in the wilderness trying to escape the threats to his life (v 9). For though he was a king, he was on the run (v 11). Now, none of the pomp and circumstance of kingship attended him. No wife, children or courtiers were there to amuse him. The ease and comfort of a royal lifestyle was a thing of the past. Only the spartan life of the desert and the howling silences of wind and sand remained. And yet the intensely deep longing expressed in this psalm was not for hearth and home, nor for power and position, but for God (v 1).

Ultimately, in our loneliness and separation, our true home can only be found with God and this is what David discovered. Though far from the sanctuary of worship, there in the wilderness he could still sing praises to God, feast on his presence and claim his promises (vs 4-11).

Whether you are away from home or not, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, ‘so that you will not grow weary and lose heart’ (Heb 12:2a,3b).

– Evelyn Miranda-Feliciano

Copyright Scripture Union, 2001