One Word
This winter on The Daily Pattern we’re in a series called One Word. Each day we take one word – a feeling or circumstance – and bring a word from God to it. Let the Word of God speak to your life.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5) O Lord, I am lowly and humble. You alone are my inheritance. Amen.
Word: Psalm 90:1
“Lord, through all generations, you have been our home.”
Meditation
Home by Shelly Schwalm
Home.
Where the food and chores are yours.
Where the dress code is sweatpants casual.
Where you can exhale.
Home can be a house or apartment, a city, campus, or church, a cafe where you’re a regular, or an affinity group. People can be home—ones who sort through problems or ideas with love and honesty. In all these cases, home is where we let our guard down and make sense of life and ourselves.
In the past couple years, many of us have lost pieces of what is home. Friend and family circles changed. Some regular places and groups are gone or unrecognizable. Loss of home is disorienting and difficult. It can leave us wondering who we are and where we belong.
Psalm 90:1 says, “Lord, through all generations, you have been our home.”
Psalm 90’s author, Moses, was familiar with displacement. He was floated away on the river as a Hebrew baby, raised by Egyptian royalty who enslaved his people, and after killing an Egyptian, he fled to Midian for 40 years. From there, a burning bush chat with God launched a 40 year journey of plagues, parted seas, and desert wandering. Moses never entered the home of the Promised Land, but imperfectly responded to God’s presence in his transient story that we call the Exodus.
It’s this guy who calls God “home” in Psalm 90.
Houses, loved ones, and various identifiers can be lost. Our sin or our liberation may leave us displaced. Yet, who we are and where we belong are answered indefinitely. The only one worthy of the title of security and comfort—home—is Yahweh, the Lord. An open floor plan isn’t promised us, but his presence is.
God resided in the tabernacle among the Israelites’ desert camp. God was home and wherever they were, they were at home in him.
So it is with us. God made his home among us in Jesus. The Spirit makes itself at home in our hearts in baptism. Security and identity are never gone or disrupted when home is Emmanuel, “God with us.”
Life gets upended. We may be called to go far or stay through difficulty. Yet, no matter what places, people, and circumstances may change, we never leave home in Him. We are God’s children and we belong to Him.
Lord, thank you that in all things, you are our home now and forever. Amen.
Prayer for Family
· For my immediate family (parents, spouse, siblings).
· For extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents)
· For close friends that are as family to me.
· For those who don’t have families, or whose families are broken.
· For forgiveness and reconciliation where there is division in my family.
· For provision where there is need in my family.
· For God to be the foundation, and the cross the center of my family.
· For a generation yet unborn, future members of our family.
Closing Prayer
O Lord and King, your Kingdom comes even without our prayer. But we pray that it would also come among us. We are desperate for your reign and rule, for all we see is rebellion. Come into my heart, my home, my family, my work, my church, my community. Rule with justice and with mercy. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.