Thirty six years ago this August I "left home". Having climbed the mountain and coming to the twin peaks of “Seventeen” and “high school graduate”, it was time to climb higher to the height of "college freshman". Having packed most of my earthly belongings into my '68 metallic blue (327 dual exhaust, white lettered wide 70 tired, white vinyl topped, eight track equipped) Impala SS, it was time to say a tearful goodbye to a wonderful childhood home and hello to an unknown but highly anticipated wonderful, hopeful life "on my own".
Just a few months from that time I came back home to visit. Although it was the same house in the same neighborhood on the same street, somehow it was not the same. Something had changed... me. It wasn't that I had changed my beliefs or even my lifestyle, although college life was a different pace. Actually, I had taken a few "baby steps" in my walk of faith. I was just beginning to understand what Peter meant when he referred to the Christian life as "the time of sojourning"(1Peter 1:17). There has been a lot of mountain climbing and valley walking since that time. I still enjoy going “back home”. But the life of faith is not in the comfortable nest but in the pilgrim journey that takes us to places we never dreamed God would take us.
As I am traveling today to visit with my mom and family (something I don't get to do as often as I would like), I think of the words embolden on the pages of the sacred text in Hebrews 11 that speaks to me again of those who have sojourned before me and "died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city."
There is a land I long to see
A place that waits before me
A place where wonder beckons me
A place that I call home
I’m not quite sure just where it’s found
Or just when I’ll be going
For in his wisdom God has placed
Such things beyond our knowing
And north or south or east or west
Wherever I may wander
I will not fear the tempest blast
Nor tremble at its thunder
For this I know I am secure
No matter what befalls me
I have a place in heaven sure
A place that I call home*
*"A Place That I Call Home" on "Believing Him for a Miracle" (c) 2006 Dartt Music Co.
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