What Is God Looking For?
Have you ever considered that the God who fills the universe has an eternal desire to have a home? This is not just a poetic idea; it is the deep longing in the heart of God that motivated creation itself. He wanted a family to dwell with. The terms habitation, dwelling place, and resting place all point to this one profound truth: God is looking for a home.
But what does a home mean to God? It’s a place where three things can happen that can’t happen anywhere else:
He Can Be Himself: A home is a place of rest where you can let your hair down and be completely comfortable. It’s where God can relax and be fully Himself among His people.
He Can Reveal Himself: A home is a place of revelation. The church is designed to be the environment where God reveals His eternal purposes to His children and even to the spiritual realms.
He Can Glorify Himself: A home is a place where God can be revered and glorified. As John Piper has noted, “God is the only being in the universe worthy of desiring glorification for Himself,” and He finds that in His dwelling place.
The Dual Longing
What is so beautiful is that this longing is not one-sided. Just as God longs for a home in us, our hearts are designed to find their home in Him. The church father Augustine famously wrote to God, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Ever since Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, humanity has been wandering, trying to find our way back home. We search for belonging and identity in people, activities, and success, but it’s all a search for the home we can only find in God. Psychologists note that homesickness has less to do with a physical place and more to do with the people and relationships there. Our “homesickness” is a spiritual condition—a longing for our Father.
A Beautiful Exchange
This leads to the most incredible exchange imaginable: We find our home in Him, and He finds His rest in us. He finds what He wants, and we find what we need. Jesus expressed this perfectly in John 15:4 when He said, “Abide in me, and I in you.” To abide means to dwell continually. It’s a relational word, not a geographical one.
The apostle Paul confirms this when he tells the church in Ephesians that they are being “built together into a dwelling place for God by the spirit.” We, the people of God, are being constructed for the single purpose of becoming His house, His family, and His resting place. The ultimate fulfillment of this is promised in Revelation 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.” God will finally get what He has always wanted.
