--- title: Longing for Home in the House of God date: 2026-09-22T06:23:00-05:00 author: Jennifer Vermeer canonical_url: "https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things/longing-for-home" section: In All Things --- [ View All Articles](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things) [Essays](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things?category=essays) Sep 22, 2026 # Longing for Home in the House of God By [Justin Bailey](https://www.dordt.edu/people/justin-bailey) What do we do when the house of the Lord doesn’t feel like home? How can we learn to lament all that is broken and not yet as it should be, while still clinging to the hope of home among the people with whom God has promised to dwell? ![A person with a backpack stands on a cliff edge at sunrise, overlooking a scenic valley with mountains under a partly cloudy sky.](https://d3evso2dxyohou.cloudfront.net/generalUploads/iat-bailey-2.jpg?mode=crop&pos=center-center&w=66&h=57&f=webp&c=dc6354e7&v=8298726da553e849588753ab65f5b30f71eddaff4280f5c0fd616eb759721581) ![]()One of my favorite songs is called “A House is Not a Home,” famously performed by Luther Vandross: > *A room is still a room* > > *Even when there's nothing there but gloom.* > > *But a room is not a house* > > *and a house is not a home* > > *When the two of us are far apart* > > *And one of us has a broken heart.* As the song says, a house is not enough, if the ones who are supposed to live there are far apart and one of you has a broken heart. When trust has been lost, when relationships are strained, something else has to happen to make a house a home. This challenge is at the very heart of Psalm 84, a psalm that celebrates God’s dwelling place, the house of the Lord, the temple: > *How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!* > > *My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD…* > > *Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young at the altars, O LORD of hosts…* > > *Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise!* > > (84:1-4, ESV) The temple is described as a place filled with joy, where even the weakest are welcomed: even the sparrow finds a home, the swallow makes a nest for her young at the altar. So too, the psalmist speaks of finding a home in the house of the Lord. > I want to join the psalmist and celebrate the church as the household of God. But it’s complicated. Because just like the ruined temple, the church can also seem so far from what it’s meant to be. What’s the difference between a house and a home? A house is a place you stay, but home is the place where you can open the fridge and eat whatever you want. You’re not performing or trying to impress anyone. You’re not trying to prove anything. Home is a place where you know that you are safe, where things make sense. It is a place where you know that you belong. Home is also the place that you miss when you are far away. As we move into the center section of the psalm, we see people who are far from the temple still longing to go on pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. Home is where the heart is and “*in \[their\] hearts are the highways to Zion*.” (84:5) Maybe it’s hard for us to relate to this ancient psalmist’s longing for the temple. But most of us know what it’s like to feel homesick, to count down the days until we can go home, to the place or the people who make us feel secure. But this psalmist makes it clear that the reason why he wants to go to God’s house is because that’s where God’s people come before God’s face: “*They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.”* (84:7) Of course, God is not confined to a physical location; the highest heaven cannot contain Him! And yet, God has mercifully promised to dwell among His people. That’s where God is, and so there is no other place that the psalmist wants to be: better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. ![Sunlight streams through a broken window in an abandoned brick building, highlighting plants inside. Outside, another old structure is visible through the window.](https://d3evso2dxyohou.cloudfront.net/generalUploads/iat-bailey.jpg?mode=fit&pos=center-center&w=57&h=65&c=e74db929&v=572026cf134763d59cce0a796993f9680de3245ff7eaf284e578f6fe35746057) The psalmist longs to make his home in God’s house. But this celebratory temple psalm has been placed here in book 3, in the darkest part of the songbook, amidst the disappointment and desperation. On the other side of the exile – when God’s people were displaced from their ancestral land, when the walls were broken down and the temple was destroyed – this psalmist’s longing feels more like an ache of desperation: “*my soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord.”* (84:2) The psalmist mentions a journey through the Valley of Baca (84:6), which sounds like the Hebrew word for weeping. Indeed, several decades after the exile, the people are allowed to return to the land, and they rebuild a smaller version of the temple. And we are told that when the new temple is dedicated, some people shouted for joy, but there were others, who, remembering the former temple, wept loudly because it just wasn’t the same (Ezra 3:12-13). They had the house again. But did that mean they were home? What happens when you go home and it’s not the same? In the same way, I want to join the psalmist and celebrate the church as the household of God. But it’s complicated. Because just like the ruined temple, the church can also seem so far from what it’s meant to be. Rather than welcoming the weak, being a place where even the sparrow can find a home, the church can give the impression that only the strong are safe. Rather than being a place where you can weep and wait, the church can seem like a place where you have to it all together to belong. Rather than being a place where people come before the face of God, the church can seem like a place where people only think of themselves. The church can be disappointing. But on one level, of course the church is disappointing: it’s full of sinners like you and me. There is a sense that our deepest longing for home will only be fulfilled when we see Christ face to face in the new creation. > To enter into the heart of this psalm, to learn to long for the house of the Lord, is not to wish for an individualized spiritual experience apart from God’s people, but to hunger for a corporate experience of God’s presence with God’s people. All this is true. And yet, *I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness* (v. 10). That’s the song the psalmist is trying to teach us to sing. God’s house is not yet what it is meant to be. It may seem ruined. Some have lost hope and have abandoned it. But we cannot abandon the church, because it is still the household of our God. As Paul writes in Ephesians, we are “*members* *of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.* (Eph 2:19-22) *How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD* of hosts. God does not love the church because she is lovely; the church is lovely because he loves her. God does not love us because we are lovely, we are lovely because he loves us. To enter into the heart of this psalm, to learn to long for the house of the Lord, is not to wish for an individualized spiritual experience apart from God’s people, but to hunger for a corporate experience of God’s presence with God’s people. To be joined to Christ is to be joined to His people, and to love Christ is to love His church. The church gathers to share our lives – flesh and blood – and through the sharing of our lives to share in the real life of the living God. The church gathers to sing and pray and listen and wait and take the bread and the cup and find our home in the love of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is the place where we confess, not our strength, but our weakness, and tell each other the good news as often as we can. That we are still on the journey, and have no strength of our own, but can go from strength to strength because blessed are those whose strength is in the Lord alone: > *For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor.* > > *No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.* > > *O LORD of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!* (v. 11-12) If something has to happen to make a house a home, it has happened already. Because when we were longing for home, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory of only Son from the father, full of grace and truth. The God who is sun and shield takes even the smallest and weakest, and gives them a place to call home. --- **This article was adapted from Bailey's 2025 chapel series,** ***Songs from the Struggle: Psalms,*** **at Dordt University. Dordt’s** [**chapel** ](https://www.youtube.com/@dordtuniversityproductiona7059/streams)**can also be streamed live each Wednesday at 11 a.m.** ## Related Articles [### More Than a House True belonging is found not within walls or under roofs, but in the care, presence, and love shared among people. What happens when we lose sight of the place of family in our sense of home and belonging? Learn More ](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things/more-than-a-house) [### No Place to Call Home but One How can we recognize our inherent homelessness and restlessness as part of the way we were created to yearn for the fullness of God? Learn More ](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things/no-place-to-call-home-but-one) ## Get the Newsletter Subscribe to the In All Things newsletter to receive biweekly updates with the latest content. ![](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==) ![](https://d3evso2dxyohou.cloudfront.net/generalUploads/i-pGGqLGs-X3_2024-11-13-195007.jpg?mode=fit&pos=center-center&w=50&h=50&c=bc00656c&v=e62248e5eafc8148fb71cd9e499265bf439690ef7d9aed43b8b6fbdad8b7d04a) ![A picture of Justin Bailey](https://d3evso2dxyohou.cloudfront.net/generalUploads/people/609cea5ae4e7e67520a.jpg?mode=crop&pos=top-center&w=25&h=25&f=webp&c=faf4a53c&v=399c7e4e1ee035d91f4c298fe742e664a0746e2684bce455137949ce07c0b4ea) ### About the Author Justin Bailey Dr. Justin Ariel Bailey serves as Dean of Chapel at Dordt University, where he also is a Professor of Theology. His work focuses on the intersection of Christian theology, culture, and ministry, exploring how culture shapes Christian faith and how Christian faith can shape and care for culture. He is the author of *[Interpreting Your World: Five Lenses for Engaging Theology and Culture](https://bakeracademic.com/p/interpreting-your-world-justin-ariel-bailey/436006)* (Baker Academic, 2022) and *[Reimagining Apologetics: The Beauty of Faith in a Secular Age](https://www.ivpress.com/reimagining-apologetics)* (IVP Academic, 2020). Dr. Bailey also hosts the *[In All Things](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-all-things-podcast/id1556164581)* podcast and regularly contributes to both popular and academic conversations on faith and culture. [Learn More ](https://www.dordt.edu/people/justin-bailey) --- [Next Article ![](https://d3evso2dxyohou.cloudfront.net/generalUploads/iat-groaning-2.jpg?mode=crop&pos=center-center&w=56&h=33&f=webp&c=5eafe073&v=4948608fbf296dbf4d421fa6024811e181b42fae67907ad5944368959d1b83e1) Essays Sep 18, 2026 ## The Groaning of Creation: Lament and Hope By Jeff Ploegstra Read More ](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things/the-groaning-of-creation-lament-and-hope) [ ![]() ## In All Things View Articles ](https://www.dordt.edu/in-all-things)