Homesick

Psalm 119:173-176 (the message)
Put your hand out and steady me
since I’ve chosen to live by your counsel.
I’m homesick, God, for your salvation;
I love it when you show yourself!
Invigorate my soul so I can praise you well,
use your decrees to put iron in my soul.
And should I wander off like a lost sheep–seek me!
I’ll recognize the sound of your voice.

Vs. 176 (NIV)
I have strayed like a lost sheep.
Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

Have you ever felt lost? Misplaced? Turned around?

Unsteady in your soul?

Sometimes we feel lost because we’ve lost…

Lost track
Lost hope
Lost trust
Lost passion
Lost surrender
Lost dreams

We might breathe in and out yet never exhale.

We might be constantly on the move but going nowhere.

We might grasp for peace and safety but claw ourselves (and others) bloody.

We might live completely disoriented but refuse to follow His lead.

Empty. Lost. Wandering.

A soul bent and buckled.

The verses above touch my heart this morning…This morning when I find a bit of my familiar.

In this chair. At this table. Jesus Culture playing. This backyard view and this cup of coffee. Blank screen before me with His Word beside me.

Inside me.

I exhale just a bit in the comfort of my familiar.

Recently a friend used the word pizzazz as she described a particular kind of lack. I don’t know why, but it stuck to my insides.

This pizzazz quality, this passion, this thing, is really just the glory of our God filling and spilling as He chooses.  Creator is our steady…Shows Himself in the pizzazz of peaceful living.

Wandering from His presence produces homesick, strife-filled living.

I have strayed like a lost sheep…seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

You know what my heart hears in this verse?

I’ve lost my way, God…I feel misplaced…this more, new or wrong path feels like shaky living…and I can’t catch my breath. Please Father, come and get me! I have not forgotten you, just lost my sense of direction.

And He comes.

Jesus tells a story about a shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to recover the one lost. We always think of the unsaved person as the lost sheep and well enough.

But really the sheep that wandered lost was once in the fold. Living close to the shepherd.

Maybe you’ve never lived palm-safe. Maybe you’ve never experienced Jesus-close living. The steady, the pizzazz, the iron-in-your-soul.

Perhaps you have and identify with homesick living.

Are you homesick? 

I am.

Because there is no place like home. No place, no person, no thing and no success that will fill us, mend us, splash and spill against our hearts like Jesus-close living.

Sometimes we stray from His presence because our distracted hearts lead us off track.

Sometimes we are living in the more and new of unknown pasture but it’s scary and unfamiliar.

Either way, Jesus is still home.

We call out and He comes.

We stop fighting and He carries.

If you feel homesick in your soul may I encourage you?

Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me.  And once that person is with me, I hold on and don’t let go.

Jesus says in Matthew 6 that He won’t ever let you go.

I believe this is why we feel homesick in our soul.  Homesick for love, grace, acceptance and rest.

Because Jesus offers what we need most.

And He doesn’t let go.