The World Is Not Enough: On Longing for Another Home

What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops (Matthew 10:27).

It was sometime between night and morning.

Ever since my twenties, I’ve often found myself waking in the middle of the night. I used to see
it as a problem—something to fix, a disruption to a full night’s rest but much later in life, a
spiritual mentor said something that changed me. He told me he believed the night was a
powerful time to pray, a holy hour hidden from the noise of the world. “Maybe,” he said, “God
is calling you into the night to be with Him.”

Since then, I’ve stopped fighting it.

Now, when I wake, I rise and make my way to the living room. I settle into my favorite
chair—surrounded by beloved books and quiet images of our Lord and His saints—and I light a
single candle. I sit. I listen. I pray.

Sometimes it feels like I’m caught in that in-between hour when the world is holding its breath
and even the birds hesitate to speak.

One night I was sitting in the stillness. Nothing particular had happened that day. No tragedy, no
breakthrough. Just the slow ache of living in a world that doesn’t quite feel like it fits.
I had prayed. I had worked. I had loved. And still, I felt it: the grief of exile—not the kind born
from one event, but the deep and ancient sadness that whispers, This place is not your home.
It wasn’t despair exactly. It was more like a homesickness of the soul. As if some part of me
remembered a country I’ve never seen but know by heart. A place where love doesn’t falter,
where time doesn’t devour beauty, where the ache inside me finally rests.

I whispered aloud without meaning to:
“Come, Lord Jesus.”

Heaven Isn’t Escapism—It’s Our Homeland

The deeper I draw into Christ, the more intense this ache becomes. Not in a dark way—but in a
way that sharpens me, that makes me feel as though I’m touching something beneath the surface
of things. I think I begin to see the outlines of God’s plan. And I begin to see how the Enemy has
tried to blur them—how Satan twists beauty, muddies truth, and distorts love.
This world is charged with glory, yes—but it’s also marked with grief.
So what do we do with this holy ache? What do we make of this spiritual homesickness?
C. S. Lewis gives us a key:

"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable
explanation is that we were made for another world."
That longing, that deep pull toward something higher, isn’t a flaw in us—it’s a compass. It’s the
memory of Eden and the yearning for Heaven. It’s not a cry to escape—it’s a call to participate.

Thy Kingdom Come… Through Us

Christ didn’t tell us to wait idly for the next world. He taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
We’re not just hoping for Heaven—we’re supposed to be bringing it here, moment by moment, through truth, beauty and goodness.
But here’s the danger: the devil is clever with grief. He knows how to twist even a holy longing
into despair. He tells us that this ache proves the world is irredeemable, that nothing matters, that
mission is pointless. “Go numb,” he whispers. “There’s no point reaching for what you’ll never
grasp.”

He wants us paralyzed.
He wants us so overwhelmed by our exile that we forget we are also ambassadors.
He wants us to cry for home—and forget to build signs of it for others.

The Ache That Awakens

In a recent article on Leo Tolstoy’s spiritual crisis, scholar Gary Saul Morson reflected on
Tolstoy’s obsession with death and meaninglessness. Tolstoy saw clearly that no scientific theory
or worldly pleasure could quench the soul’s thirst for eternity. He was tormented, not because he
couldn’t find meaning—but because he knew it must exist, and the world wasn’t giving it to him.
That insight struck me, deeply.
Because I think many of us today feel the same: this world should be enough—but it isn’t. We
know it’s not. And that ache is not an illusion or a weakness. It’s an alarm for the soul.
It is meant to rouse us.
To stir us.
To remind us that we were made for something more—and that we are meant to bring others
with us.

Living With Homesickness

So what do we do when we feel like strangers in our own lives?
We sit in the silence and let God speak to the ache.
We pray, even when the words don’t come.
We serve, even when we feel unseen.