Saturday morning. Sitting in my comfy chair, french toast with warm apple compote on top, fresh-brewed cup of coffee, music playing softly in the background. Chilly, mid-November day; skies are clear, trees have all but shed their leaves. The gentle breeze whispers, "All is well."
This is home.
The weather, the flatness, the rhythms of life, of sharing meals, celebrating babies, marriage, jobs, the love of God, praying together, laughing together, serving together, making music together. Thinking, wrestling, grappling with life together. The together-ness of it all.
Yet, somehow underneath it all, I hear a beckoning to "Come home."
How can this be? Bowling Green is home more than anywhere else to me. When I lived in Denver, going home meant coming back to Bowling Green. But scripturally, home is spoken of as a place I haven't found yet.
Because home could only be one place. Home was where God lived. His Tabernacle, Temple, Dwelling Place. As He went, so did they.
And so before Jesus goes back to His Father in Heaven, He invites His disciples to do one thing. Abide. Live. Come home. As it turns out, we are only Home when He lives in us and we in Him. Like a bottle of water in the ocean. When I, by His grace, make myself home in Him and Him alone, I will have arrived. When I stop trying to make other things, people, places fill my desire for home, because they can only point me in the right direction, I will be content.
Until then, I, too, seek a better country. Yes, Jesus, I want to come Home.
This is home.
The weather, the flatness, the rhythms of life, of sharing meals, celebrating babies, marriage, jobs, the love of God, praying together, laughing together, serving together, making music together. Thinking, wrestling, grappling with life together. The together-ness of it all.
Yet, somehow underneath it all, I hear a beckoning to "Come home."
How can this be? Bowling Green is home more than anywhere else to me. When I lived in Denver, going home meant coming back to Bowling Green. But scripturally, home is spoken of as a place I haven't found yet.
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. -Hebrews 11:13-16Abraham obeyed God and up and left his people, his earthly homeland for somewhere unknown to him. Joseph was sold to a foreign king. The children of Israel wandered for years upon years in the wilderness. And then went into exile under evil kings. John the Baptist lived in the desert. Jesus traveled for three years, with nowhere to lay his head. They had no geographic place to call home.
Because home could only be one place. Home was where God lived. His Tabernacle, Temple, Dwelling Place. As He went, so did they.
And so before Jesus goes back to His Father in Heaven, He invites His disciples to do one thing. Abide. Live. Come home. As it turns out, we are only Home when He lives in us and we in Him. Like a bottle of water in the ocean. When I, by His grace, make myself home in Him and Him alone, I will have arrived. When I stop trying to make other things, people, places fill my desire for home, because they can only point me in the right direction, I will be content.
Until then, I, too, seek a better country. Yes, Jesus, I want to come Home.
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