No Place Like Home

I'm just learning what home means.

"For he [Abraham] was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10).

And we're still looking. I'm still looking. And sometimes anticipation isn't fun. It eats away at you. Hope becomes impatient.

How to anticipate patiently?

That's been one of our problems from the beginning. We want the promise fulfilled, and we want it done now. So Abraham, who looked forward, began to look inward in impatience and Sarah gave him Hagar. But Ishmael wasn't the child of the promise. Anticipating Isaac tested patience.

And the children of Israel hadn't been free for two weeks when hope became impatient. So Aaron made them a golden calf to worship, and it wasn't the God of the covenant promise. So for forty years anticipating the land would test patience.

Jesus' disciples jump ahead to the physical reign of Messiah King and Peter jumps ahead to swipe off a soldier's ear and Jesus says, "patience." Keep watching. Keep waiting. The Kingdom is here but not yet here. Two thousand years of anticipation are testing our patience. Is His timing worth trusting?

I know He's building that City - preparing a place for us.

Home.

It means anticipation and patience and all that will be worth all this waiting.

I'm still learning how to look ahead without jumping ahead, and how to feel at home in this city when I ache so much for That One. How to be spent in love here because I know true rest is coming, and how to live recklessly here because of patient anticipation for that only place of safety I'll ever know.

There will be no place like that City. No place like

Home.