The last few months of my life seem to be all about the World Race. Every day is planning, praying, and anticipating. In the middle of all of these plans for leaving, I’ve been thinking a lot about what home means to me.
I’ve been living in an apartment by myself for about 4 ½ years now. It’s small, kind of quirky, and I love it. It’s the kind of place that almost every time I walk into it I feel that comfortable, welcoming embrace of home. It isn’t perfect – I freeze in the winter and bake in the summer, I don't have a my own laundry room or a dishwasher, and I always find spiders inside. But it suits me. It’s peaceful and private, a place I enjoy coming back to at the end of the day.
In order to be responsible with my finances pre-Race, I’m preparing to move out within the next few weeks so that I can save money by living with family. It has been painful. My first act of moving was packing up my books. I love my books. I don’t have room for bookshelves, so I’ve lined them up along the walls in my bedroom so that I can see them all. I’ll admit, when I looked at the empty spots along the wall and the big box in the middle of the floor, I got a little emotional. I thought of how much I’m going to miss my own little space during the Race, and I wondered where I would call home once I got back. I realized how much I didn't want to say good-bye to what I identified as home, and that’s when it hit me.
I was cherishing the wrong things.
Now I know there’s nothing wrong with being appreciative of the things that I have. But I was so set on home being a place that I was getting myself all worked up at the thought of leaving it. Then I thought about Abraham, and what home must have meant to him. He didn’t know where he was going, or if he would like it. He just followed the instructions his Lord had given him. In Hebrews 11 (NIV) it says that “By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.” What I love about this translation is that it says Abraham “made his home” there. His home wasn’t a building, or a city (actually, he lived in a tent. Sound familiar?). His home was God. He was following God’s promise and knew that the Lord was with him. How could he not be home?
How amazing it must be to have a faith like that! I want my identity to be set so firmly in the Lord that I don’t have to secure it in worldly things. I think one of the most painful and beautiful things about the Race is that it does take our worldly homes away, for a while at least. It forces us to redefine home, to find it in our Race community, in the hospitality of strangers, and most of all in our God.
I have not idea what my physical housing will look like month to month on the Race, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have a place to call home while I’m away. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” The Spirit of God in our midst. How could we not be home?
The last week or two, as I’ve really struggled with my impending move, my prayer has been that God would help me let go and learn to cherish not the worldly things I love but the spiritual things he has in store for me. As usual, his response is not what I had anticipated. Suddenly, my wonderful apartment seems to be revolting against me. Between the neighbors keeping me awake at night for the past week, the onset of a variety of previously unknown maintenance issues, and the sudden influx of ants and strange winged bugs that seem to have moved inside my walls overnight, it’s getting just a little easier to move out and move on. Clearly, the Lord has a healthy sense of humor!
