January 3, 2019
Genesis 1:31
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
Psalm 3:3
But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
New International Version (NIV)
                You have heard that it was said, “Home is where the heart is.”  Today we begin our Thursday morning Winter Bible Study series called “Getting Ready to Go Home.”  One could make the case that the history of humanity is the quest to get home somehow.  So where is home for us?  Where do we feel at home?

                For Terah, his son Abram and their kin, home was the rather remarkable city of Ur.  Though the name has a ring of indecision in it, it was a decisively modern city for its day.  I will never forget the great Professor Bill Tolar’s description of Ur as a city with heated running water.  Their apartment complexes rivaled the ones in modern cities.  Terah’s family surely had a comfortable life there.  Then God told Abram to go and his father Terah acted on this command.  Like soldiers headed for a secret assignment, they marched under sealed orders not knowing where they were going.  Along the way to God’s plan for their lives they settled for Harran and stayed there.  I wonder what we have settled for instead of obeying God completely.

                Our Assistant Pastor, Joshua Barrett, taught us on Sunday that our right response to an unexplained command from God is to trust and obey.  Perhaps we will never obey God unless we first trust him.  We do not like marching under sealed orders.  Like good Missourians we want God to show before we go.  We wonder whether it is safe in the new land?  What if, like the Israelites in later generations, we discover there are giants in the land? 

               Our Psalm for today reminds us that our true security is finally found in God.  He alone is our shield of protection from the enemy.  God alone is our glory.  God alone lifts our heads so that we see him.  Bill Tolar went home to be with the Lord this week.  Home is not actually where the heart is.  Home is where He is.  He is here.  Trust.  Obey.  There is no other way to be happy in Jesus.
Pray with me:  
Father, speak to our hearts so that our souls may hear.  Call us home to yourself.  Let us not settle for some city which feels comfortable.  Remind us that the city we go to was not made with human hands.  Thank you for preparing a place for us.  Please, Father, prepare us for that prepared place, that we might be a people prepared for you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.    
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