Home

I forget sometimes. I forget that this place, this life is not my home. I so easily get wrapped up in the day-to-day and I get frustrated with the details of life and I get just plain tired. Conversely, I can put too much weight in the fun, easy things as if they are what I should strive for. I live my life day-to-day acting as though this life is so important, as if all the details are vital. I forget how skewed that is and how mistaken I am when I live that way. As a Christ-follower, this is not my home.

Different Bible translations use words like foreigner and alien when describing our position in this life. Those are strong words and I have been thinking of them lately in relation to Chris being in Afghanistan and how nothing must feel familiar to him. The sounds, the smells, the food, the scenery, the temperature, it is all unfamiliar. And I imagine he feels more than a little off-kilter, for Afghanistan is not his home.

Admittedly, I become too comfortable in this life, too comfortable living off-kilter. I allow my thinking and my ways to be lazy in the fight to stay upright in a sideways world. I sometimes believe the lie that this sideways world is desired.

The Bible gives us glimpses of our heavenly home and tells us in James 4 that our life here and now is only a vapor, a mist or fog. Not only does this word picture suggest the brevity of life, but the haziness of it as well. This life is short, out of focus and is not our home…and I often forget that truth.

I remember I am a foreigner when life is hard, when things are not as they should be; when my husband is gone for a year fighting in a war, when my kids miss their daddy, when I fear the year ahead. That is when I am reminded that this place is not our home and how that is reflected in things that are out of focus or not quite how we know they should be. I am reminded that my heart and mind must be focused on Heaven and the Lord in such a way that I am not surprised by the struggle in this life and that I grasp what is of true importance. Staying connected to the heartbeat of the Father is what will keep my view clear…He is my pair of glasses that clear the fog and bring my true home into focus.

If I desire God, His ways and the home that He is preparing for me, the things of this life here and now will come to a new level of clarity. That doesn’t mean the pains of this life won’t hurt, they surely will. But, it does mean that I will take the crud of this world, the heartache, the fear, the uncertainty and I will run to the Father with it for He alone knows how to redeem it because he knows what our home is really like. He sees it clearly and desires to give us little nibbles of a life we cannot even imagine. I want those nibbles to instill in me an insatiable appetite for the things of God and for my hunger for the things of this world to recede.

There is a song sung by Fernando Ortega called Don’t Let Me Come Home a Stranger and it gets me thinking every single time I hear it. When I arrive in heaven someday, I want it to be as if my heart is already there waiting for me and it is in every way like coming home (which it will be!). I want it to be familiar to me here and now in anticipation of that amazing moment. I don’t want to buy into the illusion that this life is what it is all about. I want Jesus to be what I am all about and my focus will remain clear if I keep that as my goal.

It’s been a rough week – busy at work, reality hitting home of Chris getting to Afghanistan, preparing for Christmas without him, adjusting to getting things done as a single parent and on and on. I’ve been stressed and I’ve been sad and I’ve had moments where I’m distant; everything seemed a bit foggy. But, it has been a near constant reminder that this is not my home. I have been reminded through the difficulties of the week to draw near to the Lord for not only will I find peace, but I will find clarity and focus and hope of my home to come.