'home'

'where are you from?'
'High Wycombe'

'where do you live?'
'Guildford'

'where's home for you?'
'well, my home church is in Reading, so i guess there'

Home is a funny concept at the moment. Coming back to Guildford where i live and work and go to church for the time being certainly felt like coming home yesterday. But the above q and a shows what a jumbled thing the idea of home is at the moment. In a funny way, wherever my parents are is home, where i was born is home. The same streets i've trodden on for 18 years before going to uni, the same pubs and shops and street corners, the same villages and hills and hedgerows.

But i don't live there any more. I live in Guildford, about forty miles away. Here is where God wants me at the moment. Coming round the corner of the A3 and seeing the cathedral spire in the distance feels like coming home. I'm looking forward to getting onto campus in a couple of hours, because i haven't been there for so long, and i like being there. My room deluged in my mess feels like home. It feels like where i should be.

And then on the occasional sunday when i'm at Reading Family Church, that place feels like home. Coming along the A4 into Reading and seeing the gas cylinders (oh the glamour) feels like coming home. And soon, God willing, i'll be working in Reading. So that really will be home.

Jesus told His disciples that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest. For a few weeks this summer Bulgaria will be home. Wherever Jesus wants us should be our home. Christ Himself should be our home. We are secure in Him, we can rest in Him and find provision in Him. Are those not the things we look for in a home? They are in Christ. We need to look beyond what is temporal to what is not. To the eternity of Christ.

And where will Christ direct our gaze? To Heaven. I wish i would long for Heaven. For the terrible and wonderful moment when i see Jesus face to face, for the time when i'm with Him forever and ever. For the time when pain and suffering will end forever. That's home. That's where i was made for. Nowhere here should truly feel like home for very long, because nowhere is. Christ is for now, and Heaven will be forever...