Read Psalm 120.

The first three Pilgrim Psalms (120-122) deal with issues at the outset of the journey.  They help us recognize basic truths at the beginning which will help bring us to a successful conclusion.

This Psalm may at first sound like just a bunch of griping.  But it is not.  The writer refers to 2 groups of people in v5: Meshech and Kedar.  And what is the connection between these two?  It is not geography. The people of Meshech were descendants of Noah's son Japheth, the Mosques, who lived in the wild mountain region between the Caspian and Black Seas.  The tents of Kedar refers to descendants of Ishmael, wandering tribes, whose "hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them."  One was north of Palestine, the latter south.  So we should assume that the writer did not actually live in these two places at once.

Rather the connection is moral.  These were both warring tribes, fierce barbarians.  Thus, we understand the Psalmist to say that living where he lived was like living in Meshech and Kedar.  And what were those places like? They were places of ...

1.    Distress, v1.

2.    Deceit, v2.

3.    Destruction, v3-4.

4.    Disagreement, v5-7.

Which is not to say that it was not...

5.    Deserved.

It's not that the Psalmist was better than those around him.  By birth he was in fact no different.  But something had happened.  The relationships and situations that once were normal, enjoyable, or tolerable he now found to be reason to cry for deliverance (v1f).

The point here is so simple when you think of pilgrimage.  We will never set out on a journey to the place where God dwells if we do not desire to leave the place where we dwell.  It is what we call holy dissatisfaction. 

We will never go to the store for groceries if we don't sense that the situation in the fridge is intolerable.  We will not seek additional training for our work unless we conclude that the current situation cannot continue.  To go anywhere we must be willing to leave where we are.  Nothing could be more simple.  And so it is in a journey to God.  It begins with being wholly dissatisfied with Meshech, the place I now dwell.

If you are still enamored with where you are now with God, you will never draw closer to Him.  Do you have holy dissatisfaction?