Feeling at home...

Tuesday night Jettie and I spent the night in the Texas Panhandle town of Dalhart, as we headed down to Midland, TX, to spend Christmas with our son and his family. We ate dinner that night in a small town steakhouse and as we left for the hotel something happened that brought tears to my eyes and gave birth to this week's entry.

No, it wasn't an earthshaking event, it was simply a polite nod from a man at one of the tables as we left the restaurant--a cultural expression of greeting common to many parts of Texas. And the reason it brought tears to my eyes is that West Texas has always felt like home to me, more so even than the southern California border town where I grew up. And that simple gesture by an unknown rancher triggered a longing to be "home" (Midland feels most like home to us).

But there is another place that I trust will always feel even more like home to me than West Texas. I'm not sure how to describe it other than to describe it as being at home in God's Manifest Presence or perhaps "In Papa's lap." A little over five years ago, if I had read the previous sentence I would have stared at it with no understanding at all, but by Papa's grace, I do know how to experience His Presence, His lap, and I am amazed that I could have missed this for so long (especially since for years I have written and talked about "intimacy with God"!). And yes, I know that the New Testament teaches that I am in Christ and He is in me, but one can know these things in a rational way without knowing them by experience. And even as I write this I find longing for that experience of His Presence, His embrace, rising within me. Surely God Himself is indeed our shelter, our rock, our fortress, our tower, our Father.

Even under the Old Covenant we see that there are those who knew this. The sons of Korah wrote about this in Psalm 84: "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God." (vv. 1-2). And now that Jesus has come, Immanuel, God with us, how wonderfully accessible "home" has become to us. If I would "go home" I simply need to still my heart (easier said than done at times, I know), quiet my mind (ditto!) and turn my attention to the One who lives in me and in whom I live. And then, in ways hard to fathom unless you have experienced it, He comes, and we are home.

May you be ever more at home in Papa's lap!

Longing for home (both of them),

Tom, one of Abba's little boys