I moved to Wharfedale nine years ago, first to Ilkley and then to Menston, and I realized the other day that this has been the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my adult life since leaving Scotland at 18.

Where we think of as home will be different for each of us. For some, it is where we grew up, whereas for others, it is where we are now. Some ‘find a home’ somewhere during their life, and always itch to go back, whereas others never feel at home anywhere.

I’ve come to the realization that having moved around a bit, I’m not quite sure where home is any more. When my parents left the small Scottish town I grew up in, even ‘going home’ doesn’t feel quite right. Not knowing where you ‘fit’ can be disconcerting and disorientating. I get a bit jealous of people who know where their sense of home is.

We all have a picture of what ‘home’ is to us, and as a Christian who has a loosened sense of where my home is, I have to say that much of the Bible’s narrative therefore resonates with me. Throughout a lot of the first half of it, the Israelite nation are wandering around looking for a home, and when they find it, they lose it again. There’s a sense that ever since the loss of the paradise garden (literal or otherwise), humanity has been just a little unsure of where home is to be found. I find myself in that narrative.

You could read the entire Bible story as the striving of God to bring his wandering people home. Paradise is lost, and so God intervenes. The way is long with many wrong paths and dark times but through Jesus, Christians believe that God has provided a pathway home. In that, I don’t just mean a strange future on a cloud, but instead I mean a sense of home which is based on proximity to God.

For me, my sense of geographical home has become sadly loosened; but my sense of ‘home’ in terms of being in the space God intended for me and living a life in proximity to Jesus, has gradually tightened. Home may be for some, a location, or even a place of family; but when all else is stripped back, home is ultimately - for me anyway – being with God.

If you are someone who, like me, doesn’t feel at home anywhere; perhaps consider whether that’s because we are made to find our home in God, through Jesus, and the geography doesn’t actually matter. Home is important but coming home to God is ultimate.