Where is Home?

 Sitting here today chatting with some friends on Facebook; some are in Greece, and some are in Turkey. Me?  I am in Decatur, TX.  I have called this place home for the last 30 years. The house I’m currently in has been our home for the last 16 years.
Last year I left a job that I called home for over 5 years. The people there I called Family. Now, I call my Church my home, and the people I serve with Family. I love this Family.. I love my Church. But I don’t feel at home in Decatur anymore. I am surrounded by types and shadows of what was. Faded memories of what use to be. Feelings of the comfort are now gone, and I’m left with one thought…Where is home?  Is it where you sleep? Where you dwell? Or is where your heart is?
Where is my heart? It feels lost… Alone.. On a road that goes on, looking like it never ends, nothing is in Sight. Just Miles of pavement. This Road is Narrow. It leaves a lot stranded. You can’t take it all with you. For me? My Job, gone. My Church, New. My friends have all changed. My direction, a new. Yet, It’s not a new road. It’s been traveled before. (You may be on this road yourself.) There are signs of those that have traveled it before. Markers if you will, testifying of those who have gone ahead.  King David wrote of one in Psalms 137: 1-4 ” By the Rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion. There on the willow we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of Joy, they said, ‘Sing us the songs of Zion.’  But how can we sing the Lords song in a Foreign land.”
    This Foreign Land.. We may sleep there. We may dwell there. Our families may even be there with us. We may even be bound to stay there. But if our hearts aren’t there, our harps are just hanging on a willow. The world around us is singing their song, and they are wanting us to join in with them. But the songs that are on our heart will fall on their deaf ears. Songs that remind us of who we were meant to be. Songs that remind us of what we were made for. Songs that remind us, we aren’t home yet.
Rich Mullins, song writer of Awesome God and many others, (was also a Missionary to the Navajos) last phone call to his mother before he died said, “Nothing seems familiar to me. I feel lost.” in which she replied, “Come Home.”  Rich said, “that brings up a really good question, “Where is Home? Is it with you? Is it back on the Reservation? I don’t get to see my best friend anymore… Nothing around me is familiar. Everything has changed.”    Yes, this road is well traversed. It’s watered with the tears of those who have gone before us. Those whom the world was not worthy of, The Saints of Old as Hebrews tells us. “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the Earth. Those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own… A Better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God and He has prepared a City for them.” Hebrews 11:13-16.
Where is Home??  I’m not there. But, I choose to live as a stranger and exile here on earth. I choose to dwell with those less fortunate. I will sing the songs of Zion with those who have ears to hear. I will seek a better country, a Heavenly one.