Devotional Thought of the Day:

¹  Lord, through all the generations you have been our home! ²  Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God. Psalm 90:1-2 (NLT)

331      Rest in divine filiation (the love between father and son). God is a Father—your Father!—full of warmth and infinite love. Call him Father frequently and tell him, when you are alone, that you love him, that you love him very much!, and that you feel proud and strong because you are his son.  (1)

I have spent this fall in an interesting sermon series, one that has made me go back and look at part of my youth.  In the middle of the series, I went home, driving the same roads that I’ve talked about in the series, walking the same paths my Dad and I trod with my son.  Re-living those conversations when I was sitting in the backseat – a young child with his siblings.

It has been painful along the way, my dad passed away last year, and many of the journeys, to my old elementary school, to Lake Ossipee, to the beaches at Salisbury, even to the old candlepin bowling alley, brought back many memories, some good, some challenging.  Lots of tears, and the odd reversal – now I was the dad, now I had a son.

All of this – there sermon series recounting backseat conversations of childhood, the trip, it all coalesces into a huge lesson of nostalgia, and a realization about God’s presence.

I overlooked – to an extent – the verse above in Sunday’s sermon.  There is a lot there – He is our home, or as we heard a couple of weeks ago, our refuge. But to hear God is our home, the place we come to be nourished, to be sae, to come when we are sick and find healing and rest.  There is a blessing there that goes beyond explanation.  To realize we are the children of our Heavenly Father, that we are on this journey to our home, is overwhelming.

It even overwhelms the overwhelming challenges of this life.

He is our Dad, our Father, the one in whom we trust.

With Him, we are Home.

And He is here… with us.

Amen

(1)  Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 1312-1315). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.