Where You Belong

Nearly everyone has experienced the sense of being “not home.” Being simply away from your house is not a problem, because that is the way you get things done and experience a richer life out and away from the homestead. Extended time away or being transferred far from home is much more jarring. Not long ago my brother had to leave his home in the high country of eastern Arizona for a full year to take care of his grandsons in Tucson, in the Sonoran Desert. Even though he valued getting close with his grandsons, it was a significant disruption in his life.

Many parts of the biblical narrative are of are struggles of people of God not being home and yearning to be. Adam and Eve were driven from paradise and were not permitted to return. Noah climbed aboard the ark and floated away. The Second Sunday after Lent exposed us again to the frightening challenge Abram and Sarai received in God’s call for them to leave their people to head for an undisclosed region, a land of promise. Now we brace for God’s remarkable calling of Moses lead the people of God out of bondage in Egypt to their divinely identified land, their home.  Sunday we will absorb the occasion in which God called Moses out of the burning bush and said:

“Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, … So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:4-8, 10-12)

For many generations, the Israelites were not home in their “land flowing with milk and honey,” they were enslaved under the Pharaoh of Egypt. God wants to bring them to the place where they belong. One of the spiritual agonies we experience personally is a sense that we are not “home”. We feel separated from God and separated from our God’s purpose. We yearn for the rescue, spiritually, and guidance toward home.

The songwriter and artist, Chris Rice captures the experience of spiritual lostness. The voice of the piece describes deep pain and hardship. A yearning and cry for rescue wells up. It is the heart of Lent in four stanzas. See if it connects with any aspect of your own experience:

Fading memories ignored
I crawl across the forest floor
Pool reflects an orphan child
Dirty, lost, alone and wild
Fatherless and nameless still
Fallen heart and broken, will
there ever be a place where I belong

I cower 'neath the monster trees
And try to stand on tired feet
But gravity knocks me to the ground
Where I give up, and tears roll down
I claw the dust and beg the end
Curse the day that I began
to hope there'd be a place where I belong

I hear a sound I recognize
You lift my chin and seek my eyes
Song of love You sing to me
I ache to sing it back to Thee
"Father Love prepares a place
Brother Jesus leads the way
Follow to the place where you belong!"

How did I miss this wondrous song?
The forest sang it all along
"River rinses all your shame
Father offers you His name
Father Love prepares a home
Brother Jesus leads you on
Follow to the place where you belong!". (Chris Rice, “Belong”)