Where the heart is

In a couple of weeks my family and I are planning to go “home.” We’ve had the joy of seeing e-mail, text and Facebook photos of our three little nieces who have all been born within the past three months, but we’re really looking forward to seeing them face to face. Pictures stir the heart, but seeing them and holding them completes the joy.

All three of my siblings and their families, as well as my parents, live in my hometown of Robinson, IL. It’s only a three and a half hour drive, but it sure is hard to find time to visit, especially when you “work weekends” and kids are in school and have all kinds of extra curricular activities going on. 

So even though I haven’t lived there for 24 years, it’s still home to me. I went to college at ISU in Normal (Amy’s hometown), got married and lived in Rockford for eight years, moved to Kansas City for three while going to seminary, was called to Ridgway (IL) in my first pastorate where we served for seven years, and have now been in Petersburg for nearly two. That’s probably more information than you wanted to know. 

But if you’re still reading, I’m giving you a little of my life story to say that “home” is a term I use loosely. Perhaps you’ve moved around the country so much you can’t even identify with the concept. If your parents are gone and siblings scattered, there may not be such a place you would even call home anymore. 

You’ve heard the expression, “Home is where the heart is.” I think somewhere deep inside we all have a longing for belonging. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came (wish I would have thought that line up myself).

God has wired us in such a way that we want to share our heart with family and friends. We need each other to help bear the weight and carry the load. We need the encouragement and support, and sometimes the caring correction that comes in close relationships. We’re made to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. We want to love and be loved, to trust and be trusted, and know that at the end of the day, no matter what, somebody will be there for you.  

We want a place to call home. And while this life provides that in part, it’s kind of like seeing pictures of what’s yet to come. There’s joy in good relationships, but it’s not a complete or perfect joy. Friends can come and go. Family may even let you down. And death is a common enemy to all. 

Here’s the deal. Our heavenly Father has also wired us to long for something better, an eternal home, where our joy will be perfected, where “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4). 

So we live in this world as strangers and aliens, longing for a better country, looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. As believers in Christ Jesus our true citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await the return of our Savior to bring us to that dwelling place He’s gone to prepare for us. 

That’s where my heart is. And while my heart is stirred by going “home” to visit family, there’s a greater and more complete and perfect joy in knowing that someday I’ll see Jesus face to face. 

If your heart longs to find a heavenly home, come join us this Sunday in church and we’ll tell you about it. Or better yet, call me today. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, open up the Bible and let Jesus speak truth to your heart.