Moving

Dad worked for a heavy construction company, and that meant moving after a project was completed. I really experienced only three major moves during my school years, so the process was not terribly traumatic. I know military families move much more often.

My own work and ministry have had our family move about as often, with the result that while the process is hard work, it also is interesting, and while it is change, there is a predictability about it all.

For one thing, you learn the things you absolutely have to keep with you, and dare not pack away in boxes. You also learn that while saying “Good-bye” is never easy, today it is much easier to keep in touch, at least under normal circumstances.

And while there is an adventure component that comes with the anticipation of life somewhere else, there also is the disquieting sense of leaving the familiar, the comfort of knowing not only how the furniture is arranged, but also where the bank and restaurants are.

The concept of “home” in an important one, for we were meant to have a home, one which is the reality of which all other homes are temporary shadows. When David concludes his shepherding psalm with “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord, forever,” he is echoing that heart-felt need to belong in a space.

That is the reality that makes sense of Abraham and others not being content with an earthly “promised land” (Hebrews 11:9-16) and of Jesus’ own promise to prepare a place for us (John 14:1-3).

In the end, our earthly homes are just like our bodies, places where we dwell for now, in anticipation of living in the presence of Jesus. Home is where He is, and it could not be any other way.

“If I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back and take you to be with me
that you also may be where I am.”
John 14:3


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