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Have you ever felt an indiscernible longing for something that you can’t quite put your finger on? Have you ever felt a little tug telling you that that “something” you long for could quite possibly be your real home?

There is something in the heart of every human being that yearns for the comfort of home. That special place where you can let your hair down, relax, and gorge on comfort food. That one place, one would hope, where you feel completely accepted and loved.

The American Psychological Association puts it this way, “The desire to belong is a fundamental part of human nature … ” (Episode 206). While sometimes our human experience with "home" can be faulty, riddled with imperfection, there is a good, a perfect, a wonderful home that, as believers, we can hang our hat on. A home in which we will never, ever be one whit disappointed.

In the Bible, Ruth followed Naomi to a new country, a new way of life, because she saw something in her mother-in-law that spelled out to her the belonging, the comfort, of home. It isn’t a stretch to infer that part of that attraction was driven by the presence of God in Naomi’s life. “Your people will be my people and your God my God,” Ruth told her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16). The place where she lived, the culture she knew, simply wasn’t enough. She yearned for something more.

Joshua followed hard after Moses and served him faithfully because there was something about the man’s demeanor that called to him, that drew him to the presence of the Almighty. So much so that the young man “departed not out of the tabernacle” (Exodus 33:11). He yearned for something more, something beyond what the other Israelites experienced in the camp.

Elisha left his home to follow the prophet Elijah. There was just something about the man that called out to him, “This is where you will find what you are looking for”—a call that superseded the comforts of his well-to-do family home (1 Kings 19:19-21). He yearned for something greater than the ease of the status quo.

Many of us wonder why we feel uncomfortable with our colleagues, friends, and family. We wonder why we feel displaced, or like we don’t belong. News flash! It’s precisely because we do not belong. Like the Bible examples above, our real selves yearn for something more.

There are many Bible passages that refer to the Christian as a traveling wayfarer in this world. Of course we don’t feel like we fit in! Our spirits have been made new by the mercy and power of God (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are no longer “normal” people, the regular souls of this earth. It might sound kind of snooty, but the truth is the truth. Christians are more than mere human beings. We are new creations. We might walk here on this earth, which is why our feet will get dirty again and again and need the continual washing of the Word (John 13:9), but the things of this world no longer define us. Now we are pilgrims who only happen to be passing through this life. Now we find ourselves to be more than mere carnal beings like our worldly friends—by the power of God we have morphed into spiritual beings. And as such we long for something more. We long for the comfort that can be found only in our true, our spiritual, home. That very special place where we can sense the presence of God.

Just as animals gravitate, for the most part, to others of their own species, so do people. Carnal, one dimensional beings, seek their own kind. Those who are spiritual, even if they can’t put it into words, intrinsically  feel they don’t belong with flat one-dimensionals. They long, crave, seek to be with something more, something higher, something that will satisfy their new inner man. That something is the presence of God, He Who is their real home. Our real home is not a place; it is a Person.

On this earth we often experience moments of that delightful Presence as we seek Him. In prayer, in reading His Word, in meditating, in worshiping ... There we are given precious glimpses, glimmers of what eternity will be like, the tantalizing wonder of it wetting our appetite for the more that is to come. But these are mere foretastes of the future that make us long for something more.

So the next time you feel like you don’t fit in, don't be despondent; instead, rejoice. It’s your spirit man reminding you, “You’re only passing through. You’re on your way to your very real, your permanent home. You’re on your way to His presence.”

“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims …” (1 Peter 2:11).

“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1).