“What is God’s Home Like?”

Psalm 84

And how blessed all those in whom you live,
    whose lives become roads you travel;
They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,
    discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!
God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and    at the last turn—Zion! God in full view!  --Psalm 84:5-7, The Message

I don't always like using contemporary translations to the psalms because the poetry in them is so beautiful and sometimes get lost in a contemporary translation. However, I am a fan of Eugene Peterson's translation of Psalm 84 in The Message.  His matter-of-fact language of what God's home is like is great.  God is home to us when we are on the roads traveling. God is home to us in the lonesome valleys. God travels all of life with us so that no matter where we are we have a home.

I like that image. Perhaps I like it so much because I have moved a lot in my life. I have lived in twelve different abodes in my adult life in four different states.  So, the image I have of home needs to be secured in something besides an actual building, though I have fond home memories in several of those.  

And, perhaps even more formational for me, the house I grew up in was taken over by a four-lane highway when I was 15, and so I watched after school one day as the house was literally lifted up and moved away, bricks ripped off, house hoisted up onto a moving platform, away it went. That image is still seared in my head. The only home I had ever known was moving down the highway. It was surreal.  We moved into a brand new home a few miles away. I even got to pick out colors for my bedroom carpet, the bathroom, my walls, everything... so for a teenage girl what could be better? But I cried myself to sleep that first night as I visioned that truck taking my home away.   So I had to relearn what home was. Little did I know I would be doing that over and over again as the years went along.

What a beautiful home, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
    I’ve always longed to live in a place like this,
Always dreamed of a room in your house,    where I could sing for joy to God-alive--Psalm 84:1-2, The Message

Home resides with God.  First and foremost.  But what, exactly, does that mean to you?  How do you define home? How do you define a 'home in God?'

Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment below.  
Oh, and GO BRONCOS!