Not Home Yet
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” – John 14:1-3
If I were to ask you, “Where do you live?”, the responses might vary from a street name to the name of your sub-division or neighborhood to a particular side of town to the name of your city, state or country. Depending on how you perceive the question, you’ll answer it accordingly. What I’d like to do, though, is with that question firmly in your mind, suggest a statement that will universally answer the question for everyone on the planet. When asked “Where do you live?”, a proper response is “in a temporary accommodation.” The reason why? You are an eternal being, and where you currently live is not your home.
Everyone will live eternally. Eternity speaks to duration without a beginning or an end. Another way of defining eternity is “a really long time!” For followers of Christ, the eternal resting place is Heaven (Philippians 3:20). For those who chose to live apart from Christ, eternal separation & suffering awaits (Matthew 13:41-42).
Because this place is not your home, you might now have some insight about the homesickness you’ve felt ever since your loved one passed away. What about the frustration you wrestled with when you learned about the cancer diagnosis? Remember how broken you felt when your family fell apart? What about the relationship that you invested yourself into, only to find that there was no return on that investment? These twists and turns of life have a way of reminding us that this world is not our home. We’re foreigners & aliens. We aren’t fluent in the language of this land. This culture confuses our heart. Its stressors disrupt our sleep. This place promises so much but delivers so little, even though our internal compass pointing toward eternity is fixed (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
For some of us, the journey has been long, gloomy and tumultuous. We’ve been robbed of lifelong dreams. We’ve been given bodies that break down or spouses who can’t tolerate our faith or bills that outnumber our paychecks or challenges that outweigh our strength. Consequently, we get tired. It’s difficult to envision the future days in the midst of the stormy nights. The desire to quit entices us. We really want to go on, but some days it just doesn’t seem worth it.
But here’s the very reason you must press on: YOU’RE NOT HOME YET!
“Sometimes God is more glorified by giving you strength to climb the mountain than by exercising His power in removing the mountain.” – Kempton Turner
Edifying, Encouraging & Enlightening,
Excelsius
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