Where is “home” for you? Do you ever get homesick? Twice in the past week, friends have sent pictures of the narrow cobblestone streets which remind me of my childhood in Europe. Something stirs within me when I remember those places.
Jacob left home to save his own skin. Along the way, he ran right into God. He asked God to bless him and promised to tithe his earnings to God. Back at Bethel, he promised he would return home. In his time in Harran, he had been blessed with two wives and many children. Laban became more wealthy through Jacob’s hard work. Now Jacob wanted to go home. But if he left, he would take Laban’s daughters and grandchildren with him. Laban knew that Jacob’s presence had brought many blessings to him. But Jacob was part of God’s promise to bless Abraham’s family and make them a blessing. Jacob had to go home.
What if the impulse to go home is not only domestic or economic but deeply spiritual. C. S. Lewis wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” G. K. Chesterton explained it as feeling “homesick at home.” God has put a homing device in our hearts. Countless songwriters have talked about wanting to go home.
For Christians, home is where God is. God is here, with us now by his Holy Spirit. But God the Father is now preparing all things while God the Son is interceding for us. There is a home for all who trust in Christ. The hope of going home connects us with God. With Paul in his letter to the Philippians, we may say that we desire to depart and be with God which is better by far. But as long as we are here, God has blessed us so that we may be a blessing to others.
