“How does it feel to
be back home?”
“Are you glad to be back home?”
“Is it weird being back home?”
Every time I get asked these questions I get a little
uneasy. I know what people mean by them,
and I don’t fault you if you are one of the people that have posed these
questions, but I really have troubles with the phrase “back home.” I like to
think that I haven’t gone back anywhere and that returning to the States isn’t
a step back in any way, but that it is simply the next step in God’s process of
my sanctification. By God’s grace I am
moving forward, and just because I am not in a third world country eating
crickets and preaching to hundreds daily, doesn’t mean that what I am doing is
less significant. This year we were constantly reminded that with
God there are no insignificant moments. I refuse to think of where I am
as a step backwards.
Not only that, but I refuse to believe that I am the same
person that left for Guatemala last October, so the DJ of old has not come back. He
was left at the baggage claim at the airport in Guatemala City. He
was drowned in the middle of Lake Nicaragua while fishing for the orphan’s
dinner. His hard heart was crushed
one night while walking through the Red Light District in Chaing Mai,
Thailand. He choked to death on his own vomit in a village in Cambodia after
being humiliated in his arrogance. He
was snuffed out in Ghana after the Holy Spirit shut him up and began to speak through him. He was left hanging on a cross
in Togo. He was trampled by a mob of hungry people in Nigeria. He
laid down his life for a friend in Romania, is still locked in a basement
somewhere in Berlin, and was blown away by a strong wind of generosity in
Ukraine. He was brought low in Moldova and hasn’t been seen since the
drunkenness of Ireland sobered him up.
He is gone, and by
God’s grace I will continue walking forward. There is nothing to go back to. My family is different, because I am
different. My church has changed because
its borders have been expanded. My town
is different, because the boy that was born here has been replaced by a man
with an ancient perspective. The World
Race was not the beginning, nor was it the end. This past year was a great one,
but it cannot compare to what God has ahead of me.
And the word “home?”
