​Homesick for Heaven

4 Reasons It’s Okay to Long for Better

A few weeks ago, I had a perfect day. A perfect cluster of days, maybe. All I know is that one afternoon as I was snuggling a warm, cuddly baby while mentally planning out some writing projects and looking forward to my husband getting home for a yummy dinner, it hit me. At that moment, I thought, “Life really doesn’t get much better than this.”
 
I’m not suggesting that I live in that peaceful, idyllic mindset every day. In reality, I battle anxiety and a desire for complete control over every detail of my life on a daily basis. My personality is one where guilt over every stupid word I’ve ever said or awkward social mistake I’ve ever made follows me into the shower every morning and onto the pillow every night.

All of that baggage was still there in the background, but it was muted for once by the sudden knowledge that I really was living the life I wanted if I would just let myself soak it in and enjoy it. For a rare moment, my blessings overshadowed my unfinished to-do list and my frustration over the dirty floor and messy kitchen. I allowed myself to bask in my blessings and enjoy the beautiful life God has given me.
 
And then, the familiar craving for more—for better—returned.

Things I often wish were better:

• Myself in general—I wish I were a better daughter, sister, friend, wife, and mother.

• My habits—seriously, though, shouldn’t I have figured out how to keep my house clean by age 30?
• My relationships—how do other people have the emotional energy for more than one person at a time? If you see me in a room filled with people, I’m probably having an inner panic attack while plastering that smile on my face.
• My home—a house would provide so much more space for my one-year-old than our apartment, and it’s hard not to focus on that sometimes.​

• The world in general—raising a child is scary enough without the added concern of the evil influences out there.

Because I generally think everything is my fault, I have even viewed this feeling of always wanting to be better as something I need to get better at, like I need to learn contentment or something. Fix this almost nostalgic longing for a place and a self that aren’t my home or me exactly, but are my home and myself the way I want them to be.

The realization that I was pretty much living the life that I wanted to be living, but I still wanted it to be better, was a little off-putting. I mean, I felt thankful and blessed, but also a little bit confused.

What else is there?
 
At that point, I had been looking for my next devotional read, and when I picked up the book Home: How Heaven and the New Earth Satisfy Our Deepest Longings by Elyse Fitzpatrick, the title resonated with me so much that I sat down right away and started reading.

Let me share a snippet of wisdom I read on the first few pages:
“At the bottom of our hearts, when we’re being brutally honest, even the happiest among us wouldn’t say that our homes here are completely satisfying. And even in those deeply satisfying homes, everyone still has to say goodbye.”
 
Those bittersweet words had me feeling like someone got it—someone understood the ache that remained in my heart under all of the blessings and all of the pain of this wonderful, ordinary, spectacular, and heart-wrenching life.
 
A few pages later, I found more words that hit their mark in multiple pinpricks—painful and yet welcome on the tender flesh of my heart:
 
“Yes, home is here, but it is also there, with the Lord. I am homesick; I’m pining for Jesus. I am an exile here. I feel it every day. I am a wanderer, never quite settling in, never quite satisfied, never really rooted in this world. I am homesick for Heaven.”
 
Homesick for Heaven. Those words felt like a curtain drawing back to reveal a little sliver of light I’d been searching for from above. That word, homesick, sums up all of the anxiety, all of the longing, all of the hopeful searching, all of the joy, and all of the pain in my life.

Behind every happiness, there’s a longing for something better. Behind all of my tears, there’s a knowledge that there is something better. It's pain mixed with hope—happiness mixed with disappointment, and I’ve never had a word for it before.
 
This isn’t a book review (I haven’t even finished the book yet, that’s how excited I was to tell you about this). If anything, it’s a thank you note to the author, Elyse Fitzpatrick for having the courage to define and share her own longing for the life to come. And, it’s a note of encouragement to you to learn why, even as a Christian, you still hear that bittersweet note of longing for something better in every song.

This is not something you need to fix about yourself. It’s not a sign that our faith is weak. As Fitzpatrick says in her book, “No amount of faith in God will change the fact that we are homesick exiles pining for another place, a place where He is. Jesus is our Homeland.”

4 Reasons It’s Okay To Long For Better:

1. God created us to long for perfect communion with Him.
   “As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” Psalm 42:1-2
   
   
2. God has given us biblical examples of His people longing for Him with a longing that is not completely satisfied. 
   “O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1
   
   
3. This world is not our home, and that is something to hope in.
   ​“My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at Your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house, ever singing Your praise! Selah. Blessed are those whose strength is in You, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” Psalm 84:2-5
   
   “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:8
   
   
4. One day, our longing for God and for a perfect home will be satisfied completely and forever. 
   “You made known to me the path of life; in Your presence, there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11 
   
   ​“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:1-3

Whenever that subtle ache or stirring of longing for better makes you a bit melancholic or makes you feel like your life isn’t what it should be, take heart. Acknowledge that you are homesick for the life you are going to have with the God that created you for the better.
 
He isn’t just better, He is the actual best, and we have Him to look forward to in eternity.
 
I hope these words and verses about our future hope and our true home have been a comfort to you as they have been to me. Let me leave you with one more quote and one more encouraging passage about the life to come.

“Home in the place to come will truly be Home for us because it is where the Lord is. We miss Him. We feel so homesick because we are away from the Lord right now.” —Elyse Fitzpatrick

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of Living Water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Revelation 7:15-17

How have you been longing for better lately?