Searching for "Home"

My little family celebrated Easter weekend by travelling to Michigan to visit our larger family and friends and to worship at our home church. I always love going back "home." I have wonderful family who I enjoy very much, great friends who always make time for me whenever I am able to be in town, and I love the way we come back to visit and it seems as though we never left in terms of relationships with those we are closest to.

With our Easter trip still fresh in my mind and Call Day fast approaching, I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be "home," where "home" really is, and the reality of this life we have chosen. Jonathan will find out a week from today where he will be serving for his vicarage (which is like a one-year internship as part of his four-year MDiv program), so we will find out in a week where we will be living the next year of our life, and it could be anywhere in the country! And then once he graduates from seminary in two years, we could be placed anywhere for his first call as a pastor. While all that is exciting, it is also pretty terrifying, especially for someone like me, who still longs to live near home and near family and friends.

Last week my Grandma sent me a letter with a devotion in it that she had clipped out of a Lenten series because it made her think of us, and I thought it was very applicable. The Bible passage she sent me is from Hebrews:

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. ...  

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. ~ Hebrews 11:8-11, 13-16

We just celebrated Easter. We celebrated Christ's life, death, and resurrection for us, and that we will get to live forever with God in the New Creation that is promised as a result. I look at this passage, and these lines jump out at me:

"For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God." 

"If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one." 

Here on earth, home is wherever family is. So right now, home is St. Louis, because my family is here. But home is also Michigan, because I have family there. But in a much larger sense, none of us are "home." We desire and look forward to that better country, that heavenly one, the new creation that Christ has redeemed for us.

And what a gift, that Jonathan will get to proclaim that gospel for a living! What a gift, that in a week we will know where we get to spend a year, gaining invaluable experience, making new friends, and continuing to look forward to that better country, that heavenly one, that Christ has redeemed for us. God has blessed us with wonderful places that make great earthly "homes," full of family and friends. But he has blessed us with an even greater blessing - that is the promise of an eternal home with him. And he is blessing us with so many opportunities to share that promise and that certainty in Christ with those around us and those we will meet while we are here on earth.

I am excited to learn where we will spend the next year. I thank God for the blessings of "home" here on earth, but I thank him even more for sending Christ to redeem us and for the promise of an even better, eternal home that is to come.