There’s no place like Home
Where do you most feel at home? Is it Up North, the U.P., the ocean, the mountains? Perhaps home is not geographical. Perhaps you feel most at home when your extended family is around and it doesn’t matter the ‘where’. Many people can never see themselves anywhere but in the city where you live because of your history there. You are ‘born and raised in Detroit’ and have the t-shirt. ‘Once a Michigander, always a Michigander.’ Perhaps you are from another city or country of origin, but your family still celebrates the particular holidays of Canada, Japan, Kenya, or Poland.
There is an immense upside to having a grounding of ‘Home’. We know the people, traditions, places, and food that are part of Home. All this brings familiarity and, with that, peace. There can be a downside to this connection as well. We can loose sight of an eternal perspective and spiritual priorities that call us beyond the things of this world.
The loyalty to place, institution, or group can sometimes keep us from the true source of Home: God himself. As believers, we give Him our affections and expectations to see God as the one place we are truly ‘at home’. This doesn’t mean we don’t have loyalties to family, friends, city, and nation, but it does mean that those things aren’t our ultimate home.
In the middle of the famous “Hall of Faith” chapter in Hebrews 11, God gives us insight into this tension of where we find home. After going through a list of Bible heroes and their great faith, the scripture says:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Heb. 11: 13-16
What city? The city mentioned that Abraham was looking for in Heb. 11:10:
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
This is the ultimate place of peace, rest, and familiarity. These scriptures aren’t just talking about an eternal home in heaven, but the Kingdom of God here on earth. God’s Kingdom of rest and peace begins now, in our heart, actions, and loyalties, as we submit ourselves to Him. The kingdoms of this world – country, jobs, marriage/family, and identity – can be good, but are temporary and fragile. These temporary kingdoms can be threatened with war, a company move, a divorce, or death. We hold these ‘homes’ with loose hands, knowing that ultimate peace and purpose lies with knowing Him. Jesus said:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26
This is not some sort of cruel loyalty test, but a word of love to God’s children so we don’t cling to the temporary and lose the permanent. Like a parent protecting their child from eating something that might look good, but could be deadly, so God protects us from forming to strong a bond with things of this earth. Compared to our love for Him, a healthy attachment to these things are a hyperbolic “hate”. This is true of much of Jesus teaching:
