Judgment and Restoration

By Guest Writer

Throughout my childhood and teenage years my family moved around a lot. I have no memory of living in a house longer than three years until I was 35 years old, so I have never really associated home with an address or an ornate front door knocker. I often wonder what it’s like for people who have lived in the same house their whole life: same address, same phone number, same neighbors, same drive to school, not to mention the same school. There is something about that life, one with a place called “home,” that I can’t relate to very much.

I think moving gets in your blood and eventually becomes normal. It might be unhealthy, but this is normal to me. This gypsy life does have its benefits: you develop a knack for making friends quickly; you never feel lost (or you always do and it just becomes a familiar feeling); and you accept that change is a part of life. But there are plenty of downfalls, too—mainly that commitment becomes a struggle, a long-range view of the future is nonexistent, and roots are hard to plant.

One of the great promises of the gospel is that we will be rooted—home at last, forever in the place we belong, where we are fully known and fully loved.

We can try to take it upon ourselves to put down roots that can’t be pulled up, to try and make ourselves secure. But on a spiritual level, this is not something we can do on our own. As today’s text points out, this is something God must do.

God will plant His people, and they shall never again be uprooted. This is a gift from God—having a place, a story, a history, an identity, all from Him. How often do we toil to create our own place and security? How often are we let down because it just isn’t what we’d hoped?

What is the uprooting that you fear most? God’s promise of a home is beyond any space we could call our own apart from Him. The place He establishes for us will never be taken away. He will never uproot us from His promises, and He will never leave us or forsake us.

Written by Jason Tippetts