Longing for Home continued...

This world not being my home has been a constant thought lately. I have been listening to Mandi Mapes and she has a song with these lyrics:

                             This world is not my home
                             I am a stranger in this country
                            Jesus in me, will you pour me out
                            I'm ready to abandon all my shiny things, 
                            my family and this American dream
                            Lord, come take it all from me 
                            until there's nothing left, but You.


This world is not intended to be our home. We are here for a fleeting moment yet it seems so long. It's when I start to feel comfortable when I think that I have everything figured out that sin starts to creep in. Pride starts to take over and I think I can control my own life. I am not supposed to feel comfortable. I am not supposed to feel at home.

I was reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis yesterday. It is written from the perspective of the devil and he refers to God as The Enemy. I haven't ever finished this book. I took it to read on the bus on a field trip. I am not sure why I chose to bring this book. It is one that I read on and off so I just grabbed it before I left. I started reading where I had left off and this is what it said:


        "Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is 'finding a place in it', while really it is finding a place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work., build up in him a sense of being really at home on earth...The truth is that the Enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to life on His eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else."      

I love these times when it is blatantly apparent that the Lord is trying to tell me something. I have been waiting and waiting for things to settle down in my life. I think that after this year surely things won't be as stressful at work and I can focus more on ministry with my church and time with my family. In a couple of years my sister's children will be older and we will have more time just to sit and catch up. Maybe in the next year I will meet the man I am supposed to marry and I will no longer be longing for that. Some day soon this, one day soon that....

I am sick of waiting for things to be better (or what is better in my eyes). The Lord has me in this place, in this situation for a reason. I am not promised tomorrow and I am not to live my life in a way that is glorifying to me or to make me happy. How ignorant am I to think that I can make myself happy when I have seen the joy that only comes through glorifying Christ. I do not want God to make my life easier or to "feel at home". I am afraid to say this but I long for him to make it more difficult so I have to depend on Him and I can long for heaven that much more.                                      

Longing for Home

It has been three months since I returned from Swaziland. I think about the people I met there every day. I long to go back. Most days since I have been back I wonder if God wants me to live there. I wonder if He wants me to drop everything, surrender my life here and live in a different place. A place that would stretch me more, make me depend on Him more.

I sit here and think that I can make more of a difference there. In Swaziland there are less distractions, less drama, less busyness. There are less selfish people, less whiny teenagers, less godlessness. But this is not all true. There is need everywhere. There are distractions and drama and sin and immorality everywhere.

I now feel the closest I have ever felt to God. I thought it was because of my experience in Africa and of course that did bring me closer to Him, but it's not just that. He is teaching me that I am longing for Him and not a place. I want to feel settled, I want to feel at peace and at home. Christ revealed to me that I will never feel settled or truly at peace or at home until I am in heaven with Him. As long as I am in this world I can not feel at home. I thought at one point in my life I would finally feel like I was doing the right thing and that I was making a difference. But the truth of the matter is that I am still a sinner and I am constantly in desperate need of His love and grace.

I don't know where God wants me to live tomorrow or three months from now but I do know that I trust my Savior. I do know that He wants me to spread the Gospel no matter where I am or who I am with. I pray that God would teach me to be content, not complacent, but content in knowing that He is in control and He will use everything for His glory.

"Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content."
              1 Timothy 6:6-8