The Final Destination

With the recent church building renovation, I've been brought the decidedly sweet recollection of home. Somehow the familiar scents of plaster and primer immediately return me to the contented nostalgia of growing-up years, in which nearly every house knew Dad's masterful hand of renovation.

Yet 'home' has always seemed such an elusive concept. I can remember being asked one time the name of my hometown, and could only muse, "I don't know." Were home defined by birthplace or origin; were it determined by where one feels the most content, or familiar with surroundings; or perhaps - most ideally - were it predicated on the notion of where one belongs, then I could think of at least a couple of places which I would name home.

But the reality is that our true home outstrips every paltry perception we have if we only look at it as the object or end to our needs. It is an easy trap to believe that there is anything worth chasing in this life that could actually leave us 'settled,' at ease (see Ecc. 2:11). The more we walk around on this globe, the more we sense our own foreign-ness (Ps. 119:19), as well as the pointed discontentment with all this world has to offer (Ps. 73:25-26).

And while, as Christians, we long for our eternal home (Heb. 11:13; also Ph. 1:23), perhaps we are backwards to surmise that home is the place that is 'made for us.' Perhaps, instead, the very reason it is even recognizable to us is because home is the only place for which WE were made.