At home

Many posts ago, I think I quoted Keri Jones saying "Your home is in God's will." It's pretty simple and easy to say that when you're in familiar surroundings with familiar people around you. Uproot from that and you can become 'homesick'. The best place that we can possibly be is in God's will, because that is home for us. Sometimes I used to wonder whether Manchester had become my home, or if Aberdeen was still home. Now, in Singapore, after a busy day I still come back to my room and feel like I'm home. Prima facie I don't affiliate the concept of 'home' with a place. It appears just to be wherever my bed is! But 'home' brings to mind comfort, peace, rest, joy, love. We can be at home wherever we are, whatever we're doing, just as long as both those things are in God's will, at His timing. This is the only reason I can think of for my (already) being so at home here, in spite of being half way around the world. Of course, everything is new - everything is different. But feeling at home here has helped me to embrace the new and the different and accept it.

I expected to have culture shock, to miss the comfort of roast vegetables which had so become my staple diet in Manchester, to miss the comfort of my now ex-sofa, my housemates too. But everything here has felt so natural, so normal, even though in my head I know and perceive that it is indeed different.

God is so good. I believe that I am just beginning to what having absolute trust and security in Him means for my life. The last term in Manchester was a difficult one for me - just beginning to learn to trust and obey God absolutely. But learning to trust Him, and learning to trust Him afresh everyday as I believe I need to, has meant that He has become the only thing that I view as completely secure and trustworthy. And so it has led me to tentatively conclude that this is why I feel so settled and at peace here in Singapore - because the only thing I put my trust in has not changed. God has not changed. In Him, all that is around me may change, but I am home.