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Our Daily Bread Ministries May 21 Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 13-15; John 7:1-27 Longing for Home If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth. Psalm 137:5-6 READ Psalm 137:1-6 Ethel and Ed live in the high desert area of the Rocky Mountains. As our family visited them on their ranch filled with memorabilia, the conversation turned to childhood stories of riding horses on the grasslands of North Dakota and herding cattle in Montana. They’re on in years now, and I could hear in their voices a longing for home. Psalm 137 captures a similar emotion. The Israelites had been forced into captivity and longed for home. “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept,” they said. “There our captors asked us for songs” (vv. 1, 3), prompting the Israelites to ask, “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” (v. 4). The longing to return from exile is a common theme throughout the Old Testament prophets. Eventually the Israelites did return. They rebuilt Jerusalem and resettled in the land, but it was never the same. When the temple was rebuilt, those who remembered its former glory wept because it was a shadow of the first (Ezra 3:12). Old age may feel as if we’re in exile from our former selves as time takes a toll on mind and body. For those who know Jesus, this longing points not to the past but the future. That’s where my conversation turned with Ethel and Ed—a longing for our future home, where everything is made right and is far better than anything we can imagine. By Matt Lucas REFLECT & PRAY What do you miss from the past? How might this longing help you anticipate the future? Father in heaven, thank You that You’re with me in every stage of life and that You’re preparing a bright future for me. Amen.