They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. We know this to be true in our human relationships. After a week away on a work trip, the glad husband and father returns to a joyful wife and ecstatic children. The same is true of those who are cut off from the house of God and the fellowship of their Christian family.

When David fled Jerusalem because of his son Absalom, he found himself stuck in the wilderness, not knowing when or whether he would return home. Yet interestingly, he doesn’t cry out for his home or his concubines, but for the presence of the Lord in the house of God. He cries out in Psalm 63:1-3, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” He looks at the parched barren land and recognizes that this is the state of his soul. He feels his deep longing for the presence of the Lord and longs to be gathered back to the place of communion with God; the house of God.

There are many today who suffer this same plight. Some, because of illness, frailty, or age, are unable to make it to Church this Lord’s Day. Others, because of imprisonment, are held back. While others are cast out because of relational difficulties or removed because of the spurning of people in the household of God. These people suffer the same longing burning in their hearts. How many of the souls of our brothers and sisters thirst and pant as though in a barren wilderness, and yet we know it not?

What might we learn from this? First, let us remember Paul’s exhortation to remember those in prison, the sick, and the sufferers. I can’t help but wonder if this soul-wrenching desire is why this exhortation matters. Languishing in the wilderness, they need the saints to visit and care for them. Second, don’t take for granted what the Lord has given you. To our shame, we can go to the house of the Lord with habitual boredom, forgetting that it is a gift bestowed upon us each and every day. Rejoice and cherish what the Lord has given you (hopefully twice each Sabbath!) and give yourself to it.

May the Lord bless your Christian Sabbath and enable you to go forth to be a blessing to those in the wilderness.