Dwelling Place

Dwell: to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside. 

Moving around so much the past 5 years has taught me a lot about the meaning of the word home.  You hear all kinds of definitions, from 'where the heart is' to 'where you lay your head' and recently I heard one I like better than most others: home is where there are people waiting for you to arrive.  I've stopped trying to define it, and stopped trying to avoid the inevitable contradictions of phrases like "I'm going home for the summer" and then when I get there, saying, "Yeah, I go back home (to Bangkok in x weeks..."  Home is Michigan. Home is Bangkok. And I have realized these past few days, home is still Buenos Aires also.  

I've learned that it doesn't really matter where my home is, along as I am dwelling in the shelter of the Most High and resting in the shadow of the Almighty.  My home here on earth is temporary. My dwelling in the courts of the Lord is eternal.  

But too often I forget that.  Too often I get it al revés or turned the other way around.  I start thinking that I need to make a home wherever I am in order to be secure. I forget that I am a permanent resident of a place so much greater than anything I can imagine here. I forget that what I see does not last- that it is the unseen that is eternal.  Much of my stress in life, too much of it, comes from things that are rooted in the here and now.  But if my permanent residence isn't here, if I am truly a stranger and alien in this land, than why am I spending so much time and energy worrying about it?  


He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  

God, give us eyes to see not just the seen, but the unseen, to fix our eyes on you and make your house our dwelling place, and not to get caught in all that surrounds and entraps us here.  May we truly rest in your shadow.