Psalm 68:6

What does that mean? I’ve read this verse on sympathy cards and birth announcements. It’s been in devotionals and even book dedications. I don’t get it.

At first I thought, well … maybe it means God builds bonds within family so that when they’re gone we miss them. I guess that works, but it still seems like a kind of mean thing to do. And then there are families, even Christian families, where the members can hardly stand each other. Their relationships just seem to work better over distance. It’s best when these people live in separate states. So where is the lonely there?

I know someone who aches over the distance in her family. She works so hard to get them to function like she thinks they should. She knows what a family should be and hers just doesn’t measure up. So she fights to make them be what they ought to be. The thing is: when she honestly evaluates the situation, she realizes she doesn’t even like her family. If they weren’t related, she wouldn’t waste another minute trying reconcile these relationships. What’s the deal there?

Maybe the verse isn’t about the “lonely” at all. Maybe it’s about the family. The previous verses say God is “a father to the fatherless.” Maybe the family is the church. But the closer I grow to other believers, the greater the family I have in the church, the more I mourn over the disfunctional family I have — or had. I see clearly how much I missed and continue to miss as a result of circumstances outside my control.

I wonder if the lonely God sets in families is a longing for what we imagine we could have. Like a discontentment. Families are never perfect. Even the Cleavers have their quirks. Maybe the lonely is simply missing what we thought could be; missing what we can only find with God as Father. Maybe we feel lonely because God wants us to know Heaven isn’t here, that life could be so much better.

What do you think? What is the “lonely” God sets in families and why does He put it there?

Photo by Amanda Taylor.