Monday, May 9, 2011

A short(er) thought about our true home.

On one of my playlists, I have 8 songs in a row about home.

Going Home - Dvorak
Come Home - OneRepublic & Sara Bareilles
Comin' Home - City and Colour
Home - Michael Buble
Coming Home - Diddy
Feels Like Home - Chantal Kreviazuk
Finally Home - Natalie Grant
This Is Home - Switchfoot

Funny how these never came together until the past week or so; I really didn't know that I had all these with the same shared word.  The last song by Switchfoot I knew the least at first when I was clumping all these home songs together.

There's a bit from the lyrics that caught my attention in light of my "light bulb switched on" dilemma:

"I've got my memories
Always inside of me
But I can't go back
Back to how it was
I believe you now
I've come too far
No I can't go back
Back to how it was
Created for a place
I've never known
(Chorus)
This is home
Now I'm finally
Where I belong
Yeah, this is home
I've been searching
For a place of my own
Now I've found it..."

*

I think God's been on my case for awhile now to make me get my eyes on where my true home is.  First we uprooted from Berrien Springs, Michigan to Lakeport.  And from Lakeport I went to Watford.  Now I'm returning to a summer in both places AND others.  I'm returning to complex situations.  It's not the same.  And I'm leaving the scene of the United Kingdom where God loosed me from bondage I didn't know I'd been under for years.  I'm praying that I won't be foolish with this gift...  England is my home now, too.

Well, pray tell, if my home is in so many places then where is my one home?!

In Jesus.

I think that God has been trying to get me to see something for awhile now, and not merely as a rite of passage into adulthood.  While we can rest in oases along the narrow way, if we're really going to follow hard after Jesus, we must embrace that the Son of Man has no place to lay His head, though foxes have holes and birds have nests.  Jesus hasn't come to take us Home to Heaven yet.  Trying to bond or put stock in just one place as home isn't the wisest thing to do these days.  And by the way, foxes' holes can be filled up, forcing them to relocate.  Birds' nests can be destroyed, forcing them to relocate as well.  Our treasures can't be stored on this earth where thieves break in and steal and where moths do their thing.  It's not just a material issue.  It's a heart matter as well.  Just as crime is getting more & more refined these days, Satan is the father of lies and his demons have a deck full of old and new tricks to play on the human race.

In order to win, in order to finally go Home someday, we have to give our hand over to God.  Satan is smarter than we are.  Just because some of us may not put our stock in material things doesn't mean there's no way for Satan to mess with us and diminish or destroy our testimony for Jesus.  Not at all.  We can't fight Satan on our own.  And when we try to boss God around, thinking we're righteous for "involving God" in the struggle, we still can't fight Satan on our own.  We have to give our hand over to God.  We have to maintain a flexibility on earth.  We have to keep fit and keep our lamps lit.

In more simple talk, it's given me peace to realize that while I'm returning to the United States where I was born and raised, it's not the same as going home after a trip.  It's just not.

And that's okay!

*

It feels like home
In a lot of places on this earth
Because Jesus is everywhere
And we can open our hearts
Anywhere to receive His
Love, truth, forgiveness and grace.

When you feel loved,
When you see truth,
When you've been forgiven,
When grace has rained and washed it all away,
You feel out of this world, but in a kind of limbo.
Because it feels unnatural, we wish it could be forever...

We don't get to feel like that perpetually, but one of the reasons we have those moments is to remind us we're not yet where we belong.  All is not right, but all shall be well.

I take comfort in embracing - though I sometimes tremble - how changeable life will always be before Jesus comes.  I think I'm seeing that it's the only way to be.

Home on this side of heaven is in Jesus.
In Him is the home you can have wherever you are, no matter what happens to you.

I hope if you've read this that it helps you in whatever you're facing.

2 comments:

  1. When I fell in love with my husband, for the first time in my life I felt homesick-- because at once I knew that Joshua was my home and yet also that I had some other home beyond him... It was Christ.

    "I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there you may be also." Jn 14. AMEN!

    Keep heading "home," Chloe! :)

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  2. Those were such great thoughts Kessia! Brand new viewpoint for me... Beautiful. Thank you for sharing, and as for heading home, I'll do my best by God's grace :-)

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