This is Not Where I Belong

What images does the word “home” create in your mind?

The dictionary definition of “the place where someone lives permanently” doesn’t capture the feeling of walking in from a long day, tired and weary, taking off the uncomfortable shoes and clothes stained and wrinkled from the day and slipping on comfy clothes and slippers, nestling into your favorite chair with a cup of coffee and letting the day drain away.

Home.

Or perhaps you remember being a college student drained from a long semester of assignments, living in a dorm with its industrial furniture and cafeteria food, and then the feeling of walking into your old room with its familiar surroundings and favorite smells from the kitchen, the memories flooding back.

Home.

The idea of home for Christians is that same longing. In one of my favorite passages of scripture, Hebrews 11:13-16, the writer talks about biblical men and women of faith saying:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they have been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be their God, and he has prepared a city for them.

While we may shrink back from the thought that we are strangers and aliens in this world when our flesh desires to belong, there is actually great relief in admitting that we were made for heaven.

So, this week when so much attention will be focused on the election and its outcome, I can’t think of a more appropriate anthem than the following song by Building 429. The chorus says: