Home Sweet Home

THIS WEEK I am visiting my family at home for the weekend. I had to work extra hard for the last few days to finish by Friday night so that I wouldn't have to bring anything home with me. So Thursday and Friday weren't very fun days, but it only made my weekend here even better.

I love college, but home is my favorite place. If it were up to me I would just stay here all the time, have dinner with my family every night, go to my church and see my friends.

Home is a great place to see just how much my cup is running over. I have the happiest, prettiest, funniest family in the world. The fall weather is perfect. My cat is happy to see me. Yesterday we went and bought a lovely pumpkin and carved it up. I've never seen a nicer Jack-o-Lantern. We had corned beef and cabbage and watched our favoreite shows. This morning I attended my church with my pastor and saw my friends, and afterward we went to lunch with the wonderful Poole family. Now I'm blogging in my own house and everybody is sitting around watching the Texans beat the Jaguars. My brother is playing video games and my mom is eating yogurt. It's been as close to perfect as a weekend can be.

I enjoy my school, but how do I leave home again? How do I miss out on everybody coming home from school and work, and eating dinner, and the dog chewing up somebody's underwear, and having parties for people's birthdays? My brother's birthday is this Friday, and I won't be here.

I begin to ask God how I can miss those things, and how I can go back, and then I see Him standing there. Everything changes around Him, even while anything and everything else changes. How do I go away after a weekend like this one? I'll just follow God right back to Gainesville.

Last night I read Psalm 23, which is probably the best-known of the psalms. Every time I read it I get something new out of it.

It starts (v. 1) "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. (ESV)"

Like sheep depend on their shepherd just to survive, we depend on God. And just as sheep listen when the shepherd says it's time to graze somewhere else, we go where God says we should go. That's because the field isn't our home. The Shepherd is.

The psalm ends (v.6) "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (ESV)"

As long as we are with God, our souls have what we need. Things might not always go well, and we will have happy and sad times, but He provides for us through everything. I realized that following Him necessarily involves walking, and walking involves moving, and moving involves change. So as much as I'd like to stay in this weekend and stroke my cat and eat pumpkin pie, I have to stay in God's will. And right now that means going to college in another city and just coming back every few weeks.

But that's okay. As wonderful as my home is, this isn't heaven. As long as we're in God's will, as long as we're close to Him and seeking to be closer, we are home. That's what makes heaven, heaven. It's not where we go, but who is there. And since eternal life has already begun for you and me, and because God is with us all the time, heaven is always around us like a little beam of light coming out of the clouds.

I read this to my grandma earlier this week, because there's more treatment to be done to take care of her cancer:

Philippians 4:11-13, "[11] Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. [12] I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and in every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. [13] I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (ESV)"

What a wonderful life God offers us, that we get to go through life with the option of being happy with whatever happens just because we trust in God. It's a glimpse into a home where all the trouble we've ever gone through is like a blink, and there is no lack of time for overflowing joy in the presence of God.

Our God is our heaven. Our Heavenly Father is our home. My family is probably what I love most in this whole world, but I can't help but love God more. He's the only one who can get me to leave this place and still be satisfied in my heart.

So tonight I'll pick up and go back to Gainesville, and I'll look forward to coming back for Thanksgiving. Maybe this is all just meant to show me that our homecoming into heaven is going to be so much greater. It's really something to look forward to. And when we go home there, to the perfect weather and heavenly pumpkin pie, we won't ever have to leave home again.