Homesick

We’ve all experienced homesickness at some point in our lives. It comes from being thrust into situations that tear us from our familiar surroundings and cause us to focus only on what is being lost, not what is to be gained.

In the Old Testament, between Exodus 15 and Numbers 17, you will find five instances of the nation of Israel grumbling against Moses as he executed the plan God had given him. The people were happy that God had led them out of Egypt and the oppression of slavery through Moses’ leadership, but when the milk and honey didn’t come quick enough, they appeared to have forgotten where they came from – a place where they had lived as slaves – and where they were going – the Promised Land that God assured as a heritage for them.

In Numbers 14:2-3, we find the whole Israelite community camped in the Desert of Paran and continuing to complain: And the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” They were on their way to a better place, yet instead of resting in God’s promise, they grumbled about their current circumstances, so much so that they desired a return to the oppression of slavery.

Singer and songwriter Sara Groves articulates the mindset of the desert wanderers in her song “Painting Pictures of Egypt.”  She writes:

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

 The Israelites were having problems because they had only one reference point – the tangible, current situation. They didn’t like their circumstances and were choosing not to trust the promises of God’s deliverance. Here’s the paradox; they were homesick for Egypt, a place they were sick and tired of. They should have been homesick for the land of their destiny; the land of promise. God had answered their cries by miraculously rescuing them from a life of slavery, but now they longed to go back to the very life from which He had rescued them. As Groves so poignantly states in her song, they were caught between the promise and the things they knew.

Has this ever happened to you?

I often suffer from the same incorrect homesickness as that of the ancient nation of Israel. I should be homesick for Heaven, my true home, but my homesickness is often for the familiar things of Planet Earth. I know God has something better planned, but I find myself hanging on to the only things I know, rather than walking by faith toward the promises of God; the things He has prepared for me. When I fail to discard the familiar, I run the risk of forfeiting the blessing of being in God’s will.

What about you? Are you hanging on to the familiar instead of trusting in God’s promises? Are you looking forward to what God has in store for you, or are you homesick for the land of slavery that Christ rescued you from?

Jesus is leading us away from the things of earth and to the things of God. We can’t afford to get caught between the promises of God and the things we know. We must focus on the things to come, not the things we have lost that are of no eternal benefit. We must not forget where we are going. Our temporal reference points are no match for the “immeasurable more” that God has in store for us as followers of Jesus Christ.

It’s ok to be homesick as long as it’s for your true home: a place where your tears will be wiped away; a place where there is no more death or sorrow or crying or pain; a place where all these are gone from your life forever; a place opposite the Egypt from which you were rescued (see Rev 21:4).

Play to win this week in the game that really counts!