Going Home

One of my favorite songs is This Is Not Where I Belong by Building 429. The chorus goes as follows:
       "All I know is I'm not home yet,
          this is not where I belong.
        Take this world and give me Jesus,
          this is not where I belong."

The most beautiful part of this is how it pinpoints the longing inside each of us for heaven, for perfection, for eternity in God's presence. This place is not my home. Where I am is temporary. I will move here, I will move there. I will do this, I will do that. And when the days God has ordained for me are up, I will go home. Each of us can expect that, for God tells us about it himself in his Word.

 

1 Corinthians 5:1-3 "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee."

Heaven is our home. It's what we long for. But --- we're not there yet. So where are we? Where am I? I am in exile. I am a part of God's chosen people, the people redeemed by the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ, but I, along with all of my brothers and sisters, am in exile. Exile doesn't mean we were conquered by someone, nor does it mean a random unfortunate era has come upon us. No, exile means we were sent out specifically.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 "For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you,and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."

God promises that he will bring us back home from the place we were exiled to. His plan is to draw us near to himself. The first part of that was sending Jesus to die on the cross and rise from the dead, tearing the curtain away that kept us, God's own people, from him. The second was to send his Spirit to dwell within us, to teach us his ways, to sanctify us, to give us that longing to go home. Exile isn't easy, but we aren't in it alone. God hears us, he seeks us, he gathers and leads us. Bad things happen, terrible things, showing us all the more how temporary this place is, how broken it is, and how desperately we need Jesus as our Savior. In this suffering, we cling to the hope that is a guarantee that Christ has paid for our sins, that we have a place in Heaven, and that God himself has claimed us as his own.


The world is crumbling around us -- but we have so much to look forward to. And this is not something we want to keep to ourselves! The Holy Spirit is in us, moving us to share the Good News with all those around us. He gives us the strength, gives us the words, gives us the drive to proclaim God's promises so that others can know what they've been longing for.
As a final thought, the following song is one artist's glimpse into what our home will be like when we finally arrive. I must say, I am very much looking forward to that day.