Homesick

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

I long, yes, I faint with longing

to enter the courts of the LORD.

With my whole being, body and soul,

I will shout joyfully to the living God. Psalm 84:1-2

PSALM 84 is an expression of longing written by an eager and homesick man, one of the Korahite Temple singers. Pilgrims making their way to the Temple in Jerusalem sang this psalm to cultivate their delight in the Lord and to open their eyes and hearts to the staggering privilege of being a welcome guest in God’s own house. Singing this psalm was a way of impressing upon their own souls the conviction that nothing the world offers remotely compares to the joy and pleasure of God’s house.

What they longed for was not simply an attachment to a place. The living God was the true object of this yearning. This is the homesickness we want our children to have —the desire we pray will take hold of them. We want this longing to keep drawing them to find their home among God’s people. We want this anticipation of God’s blessing to enable them to expect that the most difficult places in their lives will become places where God will rain down his blessings. We want this enthrallment with God’s presence to keep them pursuing greater intimacy with him. And we want this confidence in God’s grace and glory to keep them convinced of his goodness.

Lord, I need this homesickness for you to become a reality in my soul. I simply can’t pray for ________ to have this kind of passionate desire for you when I don’t have it myself. Will you give me eyes to see your loveliness and the joy that comes from your goodness? Will you set my mind on a pilgrimage to the New Jerusalem?

And when ________ walks through the Valley of Weeping, will you make it a place of refreshing springs? Rain down your blessings. As ________ makes this lifelong pilgrim journey, may she continue to grow stronger until the day she appears before you in the New Jerusalem.