Thursday, June 7, 2012

On Growing Up, Going Home, and the Gospel



You never really stop growing up. That is what they don't tell you.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" people ask, but when am I finally grown up? What does that even mean?

Growing up means change. It means transition. And it can be hard.

You start out naked. Then your mama slaps a diaper on you. Then you get a sweet Superman, err...Batman lunchbox. Then you graduate elementary school. Then you get braces. Then you (hopefully) go to Prom and where a terrible tuxedo. Then you leave everything you have known and go to college. Then you find yourself, except you don't really because college isn't that long. Then you get married. Then you...well, you get the picture.

Sometimes I just want to stay in one place forever!

I love visiting my parents house in Tennessee. Emily and I were able to visit with them last month before we moved up to Madison, Wisconsin. It was great to be back in my old room, to see our dogs, and to be in little ol' Maryville, Tennessee. There is something sweet about going home.

When you are teenager you can't wait to get away from home.
Then you get older and all you want to do is visit home.

Life. It's all backwards like that.

Emily and I had to say goodbye to my parents, and then say goodbye to her family in Austin, and then say bye bye to all of our friends in Dallas before we made the move to Madison. And I remember thinking---I wish we all lived together on the same street! Why can't all of our family and best friends just be together?

For those of us in Christ--we never really have to say goodbye. The gospel say that Jesus has come to prepare a home for us in heaven, the place that home was always supposed to be. And our hearts aren't fully satisfied until we are able to go home there.

Madison, Wisconsin is where we live, but it is not home yet. But after several years here it will feel like home. And then, the Lord may call Emily and I somewhere else and we will have to say goodbye to people here. But in Jesus we never really have to say goodbye.

We aren't satisfied with this life because this life is going to fade away, and because God has created us for Him, forever. There is eternity on our hearts, not merely 75 years. Eternity.

One day we all will get to finally go home. Until then, God calls us to to new adventures, he takes us new places, and he reminds us that this place is not our home, but that we are to be calling people to their true home in the world to come.

Eventually, we won't have to grow up anymore. We won't have to move anymore. We won't have to worry about what's next or where we will be in five or ten years. We will be with Him--and that will enough.

There is no place like home. And there is no God like Yahweh, who invites us to enjoy him forever in the glorious world that is coming.