ROAD TRIP (Psalm 61:4)

4 I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings. (NIV)

Nothing is as long as the drive of a family vacation or a cross-country road trip. No sooner than you’ve started down the road than someone is hungry, thirsty or has to go to the bathroom. The miles drag by until “I spy”, license plate tag and twenty questions have lost all their limited appeal. As much as dads want to set a new land speed record between home and the “happiest place on earth” they still come in a sad second to the excited and impatient kids cooped up in the back. They’ve anticipated, dreamed about and yearned for this adventure for weeks or months and even if you had access to the starship Enterprise’s transporter it still wouldn’t be quick enough for them. We’ve all heard, and dreaded those four little words on trips before and cringe in painful anticipation of the mantra we know is pre-programmed into their little heads. Finally, in a moment of quiet, pregnant with boredom, they whine “are we there, yet?” One inquiry is not enough so it is reiterated with regular frequency, a metronome ticking off the miles, testing patience and shortening fuses. You can sense this same urgency and yearning from the psalmist’s words in today’s verse. He is fed up with the now, with the waiting, with being told “someday”. He wants to be there already, in the presence of and living with God. Not just to escape the trials, difficulties, sadness and hardships that assail him, but to be in that happiest of places, to be with God. It’s not enough to only be in the same place with him, though. The psalmist longs to be permanent roommates, to know the comfort and intimacy of having God’s wings hug him. When you think about it that way, doesn’t your heart cry out “are we there, yet?”