Hands down one of my favorite parts of coming back into the country is the smiling, “Welcome home” greeting as a border guard stamps my passport. It doesn’t feel like I’m really back until then.
The first glimpse of a shoreline over a shining sea, the first announcement to fasten seat belts, peering out of a small window to see familiar lights and buildings, skidding onto American soil--it’s all exhilarating. But even being met by the smell of fresh french fries doesn’t match that simple greeting: “Welcome home.”
If you ask me where home is, odds are I’ll answer: “Wherever my family is!” Because it doesn’t matter to me where we are, as long as we’re all together--I’m perfectly happy.
My whole family has wanderlust, and we joke that everyone always has a bag packed ready to go. (It’s not actually a joke, we really do love travelling that much.) We’ve driven all over the continental United States, and the oldest members of the family have made trips to Europe, Africa, and Asia.
If any of us are in one place for more than a few weeks, we start getting antsy. A nagging feeling that we need to go, to leave, that there’s somewhere we need to be and it is not here.
I used to wonder about that. How all of us like having a “home base” but none of us like to stay there for long. And as I read more, I realized there’s so much in the Bible that addresses this. After you have recognized your need for a Savior, surrendered your life to him, and become adopted by God as his child--you gain citizenship in your new home, Heaven (Galations 4:4-7).
We are strangers, sojourners in this land (Ephesians 2:19). Jesus himself didn’t have a place to call home (His hometown kicked him out--Luke 4:29-30; Luke 9:58). This world is not a Christian’s eternal home (Revelation 7:9-10).
So when we’re coming home from college and there’s something different about being home (besides the new dishwasher or the broken air conditioning)--when you just want to get in your car and drive anywhere to get away from your hometown of Mayberry--take it as a reminder that not even this whole world is your home (John 14:2-6; Philippians 3:20-21).
Brothers and Sisters, wanderlust is God reminding us all that this world is not our home, and that He has commanded us to “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations.” The feeling you get that your hometown isn’t your “home”town anymore when coming back from college is the soft whisper that Christians are made to go “to Jerusalem, to Samaria, and to the utmost parts of the earth.” How can you argue with Mark 16:15? “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’”
So let’s set our hearts on things above, living with the knowledge of eternity so that when Jesus calls us, we’ll hear “Welcome home,” in Heaven.
