Home

One of the most evocative feelings driving us is the longing for home. While some people live with a sense of stability, security and comfort, others are searching for a place of belonging – a home. 

This searching can come from a want of stability. The last 7 years of my own life have meant 4 different homes, 2 different towns, and I’m currently working out where and when the next place might be!

This search is found in the pursuit for meaning, for relationships, for money, friendship, peace and whatever else we can think of. People want contentment, they want to know they’ve arrived For some people, almost paradoxically, it’s travel. 

There’s wanderlust: the desire to travel and explore the world, to find new things and experience different cultures. I was at a wedding where the best man described the groom as having this wanderlust. However, he then said how the groom had found what he was looking for in his bride! He’d found a place of belonging, of home in the person he was marrying.

St Augustine said about humanity and our relation to God that “The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” 

That search for home, for something more is part of being human. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 the writer says that: He has made everything beautiful in its time. “Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” 

Isn’t that so realistic? We see the beauty of the world; we search and yet we want eternity – a permanent home – but it remains just out of reach as our knowledge of everything is finite. No matter how much we experience and learn, we never quite arrive. 

One of the great promises of the Bible is that God has a place for us, a place to call home. The life and teaching of Jesus gives us a wonderful insight into this. Jesus says to his disciples:

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (John 13:1-3 ESV)

He promises that there’s a place for his friends. A place to live, be safe, and protected. It’s a house with many rooms so it’s a place where they can all belong. And even more, he promises that he “will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” The place of home that he gives to us is where the person we love the most is found. It’s like the great promise of a family and home for the orphaned child. It’s precisely what we’re searching for in this life, and it’s what Jesus gives to us. 

He went to monumental lengths to make that possible for us. He told people that: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20 ESV). Jesus became like a homeless tramp; he came down from heaven leaving all its glory and riches behind (Philippians 2) and travelled round sharing the good news. He was then betrayed, rejected, and crucified by his own people. On the face of it is he truly is the archetype of lacking a home. 
But while he didn’t have a physical home he could say: “my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34). He found his belonging and joy in knowing and serving his Father. 

The reason he did all this was so that we could have a home. It was his great love for us that drove him to provide a place of belonging that we’ll never lose. It’s in Christ that we find our belonging and it’s him who provides us a place. He gave up home, and showed us that our true purpose is found in knowing God, in being his children. 

So, the answer to all our longings and desires isn’t found in any place or relationship here. Instead, Jesus invites us to find our home in him and find true rest that lasts for eternity. 

[1] Augustine. Confessions (Classics) (p. 21). (Function). Kindle Edition.