Intro:

“Home” for human beings is wherever God is and being away from home—being lost—is to be distant from God. We are made for relationship with God; to not be in relationship with God is to be lost. God’s main way of punishing sinners is not waterboarding them or shoving bamboo up their fingernails, but simply removing himself from their company. “God gave them up.” To be away from God is to be away from home.

Psalm 84 is about God’s home: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty.” Later in this psalm the psalmist will say, “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in God’s house than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” This a psalm composed by someone who loves and desires God’s home.

Reflection Questions:

1. “Blessed are those who dwell in your house, they are ever praising you.” What are things that may keep you from being at home with God?
2. “Blessed is the one whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” If there is pain on the current phase of your journey, ask God to bring you to an oasis.
3. “Blessed is the one who trusts in you.” Relax like an infant in its mother’s arms, take your worries and doubts and lay them on God.