Our first annual Denbigh July 4th Picnic was a huge success! Betty Tanner did a marvelous job planning every detail of the day. Michelle King and Sheila Sandoval did a great job producing and directing all the activities, games and prizes. And Becky Sweatt did an outstanding job putting together all the food... and the beef brisket she smoked was out-of-this-world! And we all appreciated the flexibility that allowed us to move everything inside into the AC when the thermometer hit 100! We moved chairs out of the way and had two multipurpose rooms filled with fun at both ends of the building. That’s what we intended when we remodeled the worship center, but we had never used it like that before. The whole day was great… thanks to all who participated.
Good habits are hard to create and easy to break. I decided to take a couple of days off work (and my blog) Mondays and Tuesday for the holidays. Mom and Dad are visiting with us this week, and I wanted to spend some extra time with them. Well, now it’s Thursday, and my blog responsibilities are still being shirked. Frankly I don’t know what you regular blog readers (both of you) have been doing for the last several days!
Mom and Dad lived here in Virginia for 46 years or so before they moved back to Arkansas (guess they decided they didn't like it). The whole time that they lived in Virginia, they referred to our annual trips to Arkansas as “Going home.” But now that they have lived in Arkansas for ten years, they say that they are “Going home” when they come back to Virginia. So they were never completely at home in either place-- they have family and friends that they want to spend time with in both places. So wherever they lived, they have had to “go home” occasionally. Thomas Wolfe’s often quoted titled really is true, “You Can't Go Home Again.” But we do try to go home, don’t we?
There is something restless in us all that never quite seems to feel totally at home. Part of that is the old “grass is always greener” thing that keeps us from being totally satisfied with whatever it is that we have. But on a deeper spiritual level, we understand in our better moments of clarity (though they be rare) that this world is never really going to feel like our home. With our spiritual ancestor Abraham, we are “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). We are “aliens and strangers” who are looking for a home and “longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Heb 11:16). We live as strangers and pilgrims in a land that is never fully ours, never really home (1 Peter 1:1, 1:17, 2:11).
We remind ourselves of this as we sing “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through; my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue” and “I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side.” Oh, much of the time we do feel comfortable and contented, and that is good. But then there are times when our restless souls cannot find the true and lasting peace that comes with we are really at home. We are not fully at peace because we are never fully at home.
You see, our real home is not a place at all—it is a story. Home is the story of the cross, the empty tomb and the home with God made possible by them both. So with Abraham, we continue to look for that unseen home. We live as pilgrims who enjoy the sweetness of the journey around us as we look to home. We live as sojourners who endure the perils of our passage by keeping our eye on our true home. We are never fully at home, but we are content in the knowledge that we are going there. St Augustine framed this truth in these words, “I am made for thee. My heart will not rest until I rest in thee.” We are never really home until we are finally with the Father.
No comments:
Post a Comment