Finding Your Way Home

By Kathi Pelton

Have you ever gotten lost on a walk or on a drive?

I remember when I was about 20 years old, my husband and I had just moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana (where he was attending college) and I needed to go grocery shopping after a long day at work. It was dark and I didn’t know my way around the city (this was in the days before cell phones or GPS). I had gone to an area of the city that was unfamiliar to me to shop and when I was done I took a wrong turn (in a wrong direction) and suddenly was I was absolutely lost. I didn’t have any coins for a pay phone and honestly didn’t know who’d I call anyway since my husband was at a night class and I didn’t know anyone in the area.

As I drove, looking for anything even remotely familiar, I began to feel panic— would I ever find my way home. The more I drove, the more lost I became. I wasn’t in the city limits anymore and couldn’t even find my way back to a populated area. I had gotten off the “beaten path” and was lost and scared.

After over two frantic hours of driving I finally found a familiar landmark and my way back to the college. When I arrived I got out of the car and walked to where my young husband was waiting and when I saw him I just fell in his arms weeping— I had found home— and found his arms.

The past few years have felt like this for many people. It has been like walking out onto our favorite and familiar pathway but somehow turning a corner and ending up in an unfamiliar wilderness. A wilderness with no pathway formed, no way to reach someone who can help make any sense of it, and a place that feels like being completely alone (lost).

It’s been disorienting!

I am remembering the words that are told to most young children by their parents, “If you get lost, stay still and I will find you. Don’t move or try to find your own way home.”

Are you trying to find your way back home— the way back to the intimacy and the “home” you’ve known. My advice is: stop, stay very still, and wait for your Father to find you right where you are!

“Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2

Stop long enough to remember that God has never left you or forsaken you. Stop looking for a way out of the wilderness and watch as he finds you in that wilderness.

The verse that comes directly prior to Psalm 131:2 says this,

“LORD, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.” Psalm 131:1

Often we begin to concern ourselves with matters too great and too awesome for us to grasp. Even our own hearts and the path forward. These concerns begin to be like a “master” over us— not a Father who finds us and leads us. We have to humble ourselves and become like a child.

We have to get still and remember that, “He is God.”

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

Some matters are too lofty for us— and that is where we enter into trusting our Father to find us and save us.

He has a word for you,

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor (Valley of Trouble) a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. “In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ Hosea 2:14-16

The wilderness does not “feel” good but as I have discovered at other times in my life— this “Valley of Trouble” is usually a door of hope that restores my soul and ushers me into a place of greater abundance. But, we must embrace it rather than fight against it. We must get still and trust our Father.

Running frantically when you have lost your way only gets you more lost. This is where we must stop, get still and know that he is God. He is with you in the wilderness and he will feed you, hold you and restore you and deliver you in every area that has become enslaved to false “masters.” This is where you find him as “husband.” This is where you run into his arms and find home. Then, you will hear this,

“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?” Song of Solomon 8:5

I think that all too often we take on things that “are too great for us to grasp” and they enslave us to a weight and burden that becomes a harsh master over us. When we’ve done all we can do, it is time to get still and stand (Ephesians 6:13). Stand in who he is and stand in the arms of the One that created all. The earth is his and all that is within it. He is God— our partnership with him is within the beauty of a “bridal covenant” not as “slave and master.” That is where the enemy loses his footing and love wins.

Stop running…stop striving…stop panicking! Home is with you— right where you are. He is always with you so be still and let him hold you until you are fully restored— leaning on your Beloved!