I recently, as in last night, read this interesting article "Why Missionaries Can Never Go Home Again", and it struck several familiar chords I have felt my heart play this holiday season.
"Home" isn't home anymore, the states I mean. Where we are located isn't home either. It almost feels like Carrie Underwood's song "Temporary Home" when I think about it. No one here, nor there, really understands what we go through, think, pray about, or even mean when certain things come about. Sometimes it's like living in a snow globe, we're the only ones taking up occupancy with neighbors in their own little globes. We don't understand their lives, nor do they get ours. We are going through life to find where we belong not really realizing that this is all temporary. That anger you're feeling, the happiness, that job, these finances... all of it is temporary.
In our most recent ministry, living in middle GA, God reminded me every single day that it was temporary. I never once had that want/urge/ability to call that town, or church, home. I knew that our lives didn't stop there, especially not for a long time. Here isn't much different. I am able to give it a small label of "home", but I still know in my heart that this isn't the end. Now whether that means another country comes next, maybe another continent, the states, maybe this is where I die, or even if I am here when Jesus returns... I know that this is home for a little while. And I am okay with that! A wise friend who has traveled pretty much everywhere told me once, "Home is where ever I am, whether that is the states, or a foreign country. I am home." I love this mind set, especially over this holiday season when we're not even staying in our apartment that we pay rent for here (we're staying in another's place with more heat ;)), but we still feel completely at home.
I love that home can be anywhere you choose for it to be. We make up our home, just like God makes up His home in Heaven. He has prepared this beautiful place, just for us, to come and stay... FOREVER. I love that His home IS our final destination. Heaven isn't temporary. In Heaven we aren't longing to know where He will take us next. In Heaven we aren't having to constantly glue our faith to our chest in order to keep it as God takes us through the scary, dark places in life.
I know that this holiday season (Thanksgiving, Christmas) has come and gone in a blink of an eye, but as you enter the new year keep in mind that all of this is temporary. Heaven is forever. What you do today, tomorrow, next week, or even in the next 5 years holds no comparison for what God has waiting for you. Be careful to fill your days with those things that bring Him glory, not yourself.
In my Bible the following verses are titled, "The Heavenly Hope":
Hebrews 11: 13-16 NKJV
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Because mostly of financial reasons, we were not able to put up and decorate a tree of our own, but we got to view and celebrate Christmas with a few other trees.
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The Christmas Tree at Manger Square in Bethlehem
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
Lamberts
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