Is this where I live?

I’m the type of person that gets home sick. Easily. Even if I’ve got the whole family travelling with me and we’re only gone for a couple days, I will most likely at some point just want to be home.

So one day, as I was traveling with my sister and some other folks from our church down to the Mexican border, I started to think about this home-sickness. Why do I feel like this? Why do I miss home, no matter who I’m travelling with, and almost no matter how long I’m gone? Where does this feeling come from? I can’t say that it matches any other feeling – in some ways it’s a sadness, in some ways a hidden discomfort with the unknown, in some ways it’s a weariness of not knowing these new places as well as I know my own…. However one describes it, there’s just this particular desire to be home.

And then, I started to think about my Home – that place that’s Home not because of an address but because of Who lives there. I started to think about how much I want to be there too.

Then I looked a little deeper. Why do I feel so lonesome for my home on good ole North 51^st Ave, when the Home I should be lonesome for is the one where my Father lives – the one our Bride Groom has gone to prepare for us; that’s where I should want to be more than anything – and not because it’s got streets of gold and pearly gates. For one thing, that would be esteeming the created more than the Creator. And besides – who’ll be able to even notice once we see Him for whom we lived, for whom we willingly die? If we just want to go to Heaven to see the amazing bling and stay out of hell, it’s more than completely missing the point. The reason that Heaven is Home is because that’s where my Father, my Brother, my Family all live. And I want to be there too – because I love them all – but most importantly Jesus Christ.

So this made me look deeper yet. I’m lonesome for my physical home, because it’s what’s familiar – this particular house is where I’ve been for almost half my life. I’ve lived in the same state my whole life. I know my way around most places, and have pretty good guesses for the rest. I know generally what kind of people to expect to see here, I can usually guess when someone is not a native of my state, and I can usually tell who’s never known another state. I’m familiar with my home – and I like it. But am I as familiar with my eternal Home? Am I familiar enough with it to know who else is from There? Can I hear in someone’s voice the “accent” of a heavenly country? What’s more, can someone hear those “accents” in my voice?

It is my hope as I start this new venture of a blog that I will grow in my knowledge of my Home land, and that as I’m enlightened by the Words of my Father and those of His children, that the words I write will encourage you on your pilgrimage in this far country.  

As I go about my life, whether home or roaming about the country, I will always be Homesick; for that City “whose builder and maker is God.”