home

For the Bible studies on Friday and Saturday afternoon while we were in Barra Vieja, Grant decided to talk through the story of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and explore it as an extended metaphor of salvation. By the end of the weekend, we realized that God had directed his heart that way maybe more for us than for the people there.

On Friday, we started with the cry of the children of Israel to God for deliverance and salvation from the slavery in Egypt. Then God, in His mercy sent Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, like He sent Jesus to save us and lead us out of the land of sin. Then in demonstration that only He could deliver them from Egypt, He sent the ten plagues to triumph over Pharaoh and rescue His people, just as only He can deliver us from sin.

On Saturday, we continued with the children of Israel as they left Egypt, led by the cloud into a place where they faced the impassable Red Sea, trapped in by the terrain, and pursued by an army of Egyptians ready to drag them back into slavery. Escape was impossible; the children of Israel could do nothing to help their situation. As God always provides a way of escape in time of temptation, He provided for His people as He opened up the Red Sea and "baptized" the children of Israel as they passed through and "buried" the sinful Egyptians forever. "...there remained not so much as one of them." Freed from the law of Pharoah, the children of Israel marched joyfully onward to the Promised Land... until the going got tough. As soon as things were not pleasant, they wanted to go back. They wanted to go back home.

By Sunday evening, "home" was on my mind. I put "home" in quotes, because going away to Barra Vieja for a weekend complicated my concept of "home" and left me feeling a little lost. Living in Ixtlan, we refer to Illinois as home. Being in Barra Vieja, however, as we started talking about going "home" we were referring to Ixtlan. Where is home, anyway? We've both lived in a lot of places in the past few years - our parents' houses, then the dorms and two summers away in two separate places for me, apartments at the Crossings and Adelaide, the basement of Mel & Nola's house... then our little house on County Line Rd. in Speer - but none of those are home anymore. Janelle and I were talking about this yesterday afternoon, and she mentioned that really, wherever we both are is the only home we know. I think that really sums up how I feel - and while its a beautiful thing to be able to be at home together wherever we are, this semi-nomadic life we sometimes feel like we live does take its toll.

As I started thinking about home in light of learning about the children of Israel this weekend, I began to feel a new kindred spirit with them. They came alive to me - their struggles, their needs, their desires... for the first time, I was able to see past their wandering and complaining. I'll admit - the children of Israel have often frustrated me with their inability to see God's hand in everything they were going through. But for the first time, I realized that we are so much the same. If I were given the opportunity to sit down and talk with a young Israelite woman, we'd have a lot in common. As the children of Israel were walking through the wilderness - representative of our lives now, if we are Christians - having crossed the Red Sea and come out of the land of sin, but still not to the Promised Land yet - it was hard! They still looked back; as horrible as Egypt had been, at least it was a known... something they had already experienced, something they knew something about. In Egypt, they knew how to live. They knew the people, they knew where to find things, they knew the routine. As humans, we cling to that known - it is often a source of security and comfort for us, knowing that at least, if everything else fails, we still have what we know. When what we know becomes irrelevant, however, we are forced to trust in Something beyond us - the One who does know all. For the Israelites, coming out of Egypt was nothing like what they had known; rather it pulled them completely out of their comfort zone and forced them to rely upon the only constant in their lives - God. And in my own life, when everything is changing - when I'm coming out of Egypt, and out of sin, and out of the past, and out of anything comfortable and known - I'm forced to rely upon the only constant in my life - God. I'm forced to look beyond this world to find "home".

There's a song called "Painting Pictures of Egypt" that took on a whole new meaning for me this weekend... as you read through the lyrics I think you will see why. It's a song I've always liked, but throughout the past few weeks I've gained a greater understanding of it. It's about salvation. It's about the children of Israel coming out of Egypt. It's about you and I coming out of sin. And, its about home, and the Promised Land, and looking back, and being human, and knowing God. It's about our journey.

"I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me either way
The places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling after me like a long lost friend

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
It’s all about comfortable
When you move so much
The place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a way to live
It wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

CHORUS:
I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt 
Leaving out what it lacked 
The future seems so hard 
And I want to go back 
But the places that used to fit me 
Cannot hold the things I've learned 
And those roads closed off to me 
While my back was turned 

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
Caught between the promise
And the things I know

If it comes too quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
If it comes too quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?"

(Painting Pictures of Egypt, Sara Groves)

And so I, and maybe many of you stand right there - caught between the promise and the things we know. Yet as the 'things we know' become less and less applicable, more and more a thing of the past, we learn to look forward to the promise. As I think about "home", I realize that life and circumstances change, and that what was once "home" isn't even the same anymore either. People change and places change - and "the places that used to fit [us] [often] cannot hold the things [we've] learned". Home is still home, and yet what we expect when we think of home is often an expectation based on past experience, not current circumstances. The more life changes, and the more unrest there is around us, the more thankful I become that there's something beyond this life, beyond the past and the things we used to know, and the more I long for it. The promise is yet to come - its not here yet.

When Grant and I were talking about it all this on Sunday night, he told me this story. I looked it up online and copied and pasted it from http://www.ugandamission.net/ministry/teaching/homecoming.html.

"An old missionary couple had been working in Africa for years and were returning to New York to retire. They had no pension; their health was broken; they felt defeated, discouraged, and afraid. As the trip began, they discovered they were on the same ship as President Teddy Roosevelt, who was returning from one of his big-game hunting expeditions.

No one paid any attention to them. They watched the fanfare that accompanied the President's entourage, with passengers trying to catch a glimpse of the great man. As the ship moved across the ocean, the old missionary said to his wife, "Something is wrong. Why should we have given our lives in faithful service for God in Africa all these many years and have no one care a thing about us? Here this man comes back from a hunting trip and everybody makes much over him, but nobody gives two hoots about us."

"Dear, you shouldn't feel that way," his wife said. He replied "I can't help it; it just doesn't seem right."

When the ship docked in New York, a band was waiting to greet the President. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. The papers were full of the President's arrival. No one noticed the missionary couple. They slipped off the ship, disappeared in the crowd, and found a cheap flat on the East Side, hoping the next day to see what they could do to make a living in the city. That night the man's spirit broke. He said to his wife, "I can't take this; God is not treating us fairly." His wife replied, "Why don't you go in the bedroom and tell that to the Lord?" 

A short time later he came out from the bedroom, but now his face was completely different. His wife asked, "Dear, what happened?"

The Lord settled it with me. I told Him how bitter I was that the President should receive this tremendous homecoming, when no one met us as we returned home. And when I finished, it seemed as though the Lord put His hand on my shoulder and simply said;

"You're not home yet."

As a disclaimer, we don't feel this way at all. We are looking forward to coming home and spending time with our friends and family at Christmas, and were are so thankful that we do not feel alone. But oh, how I pray for this perspective - to realize that this world is not my home - and that I am always going to be a pilgrim here, no matter how settled or unsettled I feel. We are not there yet. So my concept of home still challenges me. My expectations for our three weeks at home and other peoples' expectations for our three weeks at home make me do a lot of wondering and questioning. I still struggle daily to maintain a more eternal perspective; a perspective that disregards the longings and desires of my heart for stability and security here. A perspective that knows that beyond all this, there is something more. A perspective that anticipates and anxiously awaits a non-stop to Chicago flight on December 13, and yet knows that even the most perfect three weeks, or a less-than-perfect three weeks, at "home" doesn't compare to the glories awaiting us further along.

Whenever we wonder what we're doing, still here in the wilderness, still wandering through a foreign land, we cannot forget... "[heaven] is the reason behind all this time and sand".