“Are We Home Yet?”

Over the holidays, we pulled out a lot of our photo albums and had some good laughs together as a family. I remember so well on family vacations there would always come a point in time, usually a day or two before the vacation came to an end, when I knew it was time for us to return home. Tempers started flaring, whining increased exponentially and we were getting diminishing returns on enjoyment.

At the start of the vacation, there'd be such anticipation with active children incessantly asking "Are we there yet?" Now on the last day of vacation, little heads bobbed heavily with sleep, and the quiet was occasionally broken with the plaintive question, "Are we home yet?" That question expressed what we all felt, how good it would be to get home!

I always felt a sense of relief when we finally turned into our driveway. The first child to wake up would squeal with delight "We're home!" and everyone suddenly came to life, scrambling out of the car and running to the front door. We enjoyed our vacation, but we loved coming home!

Home means different things to different people. Below are several statements that describe how some people feel about home. Which ones do you relate to?

Anywhere as long as its with my family
On the playing field with my team
Where someone is there for me no matter how hard times get
Where things are comfortable and familiar, and I can just be myself
Where I belong
Clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy
I'm not sure,. I've never felt at home

While many, hopefully most of us, associate positive feelings and memories with home, I am aware that an increasing number of people do not find a home anywhere. Yet we all need a sense of home. While we often associate home with a place, it is really an inner state of being.

An unknown writer describes "home" as "a sacred, mythical space, even for nonreligious people. It is a special space beyond our doorsills, that simply cannot be violated. We want and need a space where we can close the door on chaos, and find some sense of cosmos, peace, and assurance of purpose. A space where we can say, ‘This is mine. I belong here.’"

I think we have this inner desire for home, because we are created by God for relationship and to be at home with Him. He wants us to have the assurance that we are wanted, that there is a place that is ours, a place where we belong. Jesus tells us in John 14:1–4a: "Don't be troubled and anxious in your heart, but trust in God and also me. In my father's house there are many rooms. I go there to prepare a special place for you. You can be sure that if I prepare a special place for you, I will come and get you so that where I am, there you may be also."

No matter what our personal history of having a home is, God intends for each one of us to always have a sense of home. He invites us into a never-ending relationship with Him, where we are loved and accepted for who we are, and we know that we always belong.

Please come join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM. My wife, Pastor Sue Ahn, will be talking about home, and the sense of home God means each one of us to have. This is the third topic in our current series, "What’s the H in HRock Church?"