“The LORD said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.’” (Genesis 12:1).
God’s people are a people of movement. From the very beginning of an Eden’s expulsion, we’ve been spreading our outward influence. One home at time. One town at a time. One state at a time, and for some of us, one country at a time.
My outward has included sixteen homes, eight towns, and five states. I’m confident there will be a few more “outwards”before God calls me home.
Home.
They say you can’t go there … ever really return to the place that you once called home and have it be the same, feel the same, carry the same weight in your heart that it once did.
Yesterday I tried. To return to the place…
where I used to live.
An unplanned doctor’s visit took me there. One hundred and fifty round trip miles out of my routine on a day when I needed the beauty of a routine’s homecoming. A day when kids donned their backpacks for the post-Christmas return to school and when the college eldest packed his car accordingly.
It would have been lovely to retreat. To stay in the warmth and cover of a Monday. But lovely isn’t always our luxury. Routine isn’t always our comfort. Sometimes we forego the usual for the sake of a greater purpose—a purpose that requires our return to the safety and harbor of a “used to” because our “used to” is sometimes best used in our now.
The understanding birthed in our long ago and far away can be the sure and vital anchor that serves us in our now.
For me, my “used to” was a long-standing relationship with a doctor in whom I place my highest confidence. And while I have many other reasons for returning to the community that I called home for four years, my visit yesterday was singular in purpose.
My health.
I can’t think of a better reason to return to my “used to.” Can you?
I’ve been back for funerals; for weddings; for baby showers and for all manner of impromptu gatherings with friends. We loved our lives on the Pamlico River. During our tenure there, we added two children to our family and watched as our older two sons grew from boys into young men. When we moved in 2004, our pockets were filled with enough stones of remembrances to commission a large and lasting memorial.
It would take us a long season to recover from the grief of our “letting go.” But we did, we have, and the place we “used to” call home has been replaced by the community that now houses our hearts.
I am thankful for the outward pulse that exists within me. And while I don’t always readily embrace its rhythm, I value the portrait that it paints. It is a picture that breathes with the truth and understanding of our Father’s intention for our lives.
God means for us to move beyond ourselves. For some of us, it’s a literal move. For others, it’s an inward resolve to become an outward person. Regardless of our physical locations, whether it is one or many throughout our lifetime, God has set his “go” into our spirits. Not because he’s trying to make our lives difficult, but rather because he’s allowing us to make his matter.
His life. His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In us, through us, and beyond us as we walk our obedience and scatter his seed accordingly. We need not fear the corners that lie ahead. Instead, we can turn them with the confidence of all eternity. Why?
Because the understanding birthed in our long ago and far away can be the sure and vital anchor that serves us in our now.
Long ago and far away, God interrupted the place where you used to live with the truth of your forever—the place where you will always live.
At home with him. He is the only place where you can truly return, and have it be the same, feel the same, and carry the same weight in your heart that it always has. You carry that truth with you wherever you go.
Thus, no matter your station in life, no matter the twists and turns of your current “going,” God is your Confidence, and the long-standing relationship birthed with him on this side of eternity secures your heart’s health for the outward obedience required to get you there. To get me there.
To our final destination where feet no longer gather dust and where hearts no longer grieve the pain of our letting go’s. Until then, may the consecrated ache that precedes our arrival be the eternal fuel that keeps us moving, with an eternal “go” in our spirits and with God’s kingdom end in mind. Thus, I pray…
Bring us home, Father, to the place where you have always lived. Forgive me when my temporal dwelling becomes too important—when the aches and pains of my moving beyond myself exceed the portrait of my eternal journey. You have made my faith to be a moving faith…a progressive and outward influence that refuses the stagnancy of an inward focus. Keep me moving, Father. Whether in this current station of life or in another, never let me forget that my steps are forged with the truth and love of an unseen kingdom that is calling me onward and upward to receive my crown and your forever kingdom’s rest. Today, I concede my heart and will for the outward pulse of the journey. Amen.