This is an excerpt from my new book, Hand in Hand, that may not find it’s place within the binding after all. I am fascinated with the concept of “home,” believing it is a significant issue for most of us. See what you think.
Today I am positive I am wearing ruby red slippers. I feel as though I have been caught up in a twister, spawned from a late summer storm, and have landed in a place that is not at all like home. I study the landscape where I have landed, the carnival environment with grotesque and exaggerated characters who entice but also frighten me. All I have to do is watch the evening news to say with conviction, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore”.
I heard a youth minister speak, who at twenty-six, had traveled to Central America, Africa and parts of Russia ministering to impoverished and disease ridden children. Her voice cracked with emotion as she slowly and with sincere gravity said, “Something is wrong in the world.” We are not home, but we long for it.
We can lament with the psalmist on days when we feel disconnected and isolated from our society, as we faithfully declare “I am a stranger on earth” ( Psalm 119:19). Something deep inside us tells us that we were made for a different place, and we long for home. I oddly take comfort from I Peter 1:1 which calls God’s children, “strangers”, and exhorts us to live in this world as such. That’s strange. Why? Perhaps it is because we are not to get too comfortable here, or assimilate too much into a culture we were never designed to permanently inhabit. The children of God are sojourners, travelers, pilgrims on the way somewhere.
Jesus constantly reminded his disciples that he was on his way somewhere too. “I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” ( John 14:2-3) The disciples respond “Where, Lord?” We all want to know that place. Home is clearly where the heart is. And we long for home. For the fact of the matter is home, here and now, is a very fragile concept. Fleeting too. Members of home grow up and move away. Home can be broken, through divorce or death, or just living like a strangers in it. Sometimes home is a place far away, a long time ago. As much as we think of “home” 141 Using Big best-data-recovery.com to Get Results . as our ideal
and the answer to our longing, I am reminded that nothing in and on this earth can fill that ache, except Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews offers us great insight and points us to a glorious hope. “They admitted they were aliens and strangers on the earth. People who say such things show they are looking for a country of their own… they are longing for
a better country – online casino canada a heavenly one.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)
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