Within the context of Home

What if I had my house on a string, able to take it with me everywhere my feet would wander?  All the comforts of home conveniently only as far away as the few porch steps up to the front door.  What if my house had sails and could fly like a kite, and I could travel over the seven seas while still safe on my well worn sofa?  What if I could write letters at my own kitchen table and then hand deliver them all around the world on the same day?  What if the vagrant lifestyle could coexist with the home life?

I am called to the nations.  That presents me with a dilemma.  My heart has always longed for home.  No, I'm not a homebody.  I don't get homesick.  I'm not even really referring to the home that I grew up in.  In all honesty, I am an adventurer, a pioneer, a traveler.  I get restless leg syndrome when I sit around in one place for too long.  I just want to see what lies around the bend.  So what do I mean when I talk about longing for home?

According to the dictionary home is "a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates."  Home is the environment in which you thrive, where you are able to fully be you and where the most fruit comes out of your life.  Home is where you belong, where you know and are known.  A fish is at home in water.  A bird is at home in flight.  A baby is at home in his mother's arms.  A song is at home in a cathedral.  Paint is at home on a canvas.  Tap shoes are at home on the feet of a dancer.  It's not four walls built out of wood or brick.  Home is the collision of passion and purpose.  And it's not just doing what you were born to do, but doing it alongside people you love.

In my limited perspective, I have always thought "being called to the nations" could be summed up as... lonely, displaced, always a stranger in a foreign land, never truly belonging anywhere and far, far, FAR away from home.  This idea was anything but appealing to me.  I rejected the word about the nations, or at best, "put it on the shelf" for a future lifetime.

I would have people come up to me and prophesy that they saw nations over me, God was sending me out to all nations of the world.  God they must be confusing me with someone else.  I'm not that girl who can't wait to live in a village hut for the rest of her life.  That's not me!  Or I would get the word that I was going to be like a gypsy, never staying in one place for very long.  Now that's definitely not me!  I just want to belong somewhere, to invest into some place that I can call home.  Thus unfolded the dilemma.  

Well I guess God must have shifted my heart...  I somehow found myself signing up to live in South America for 9 months.  And I moreover found myself in love with the world, the Psalm 2 promise becoming one of my greatest passions.  (Psalm 2:8 "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.")  

So have I sentenced myself to a lonely, displaced life far from home?  Am I denying myself the vanilla ice cream by choosing the chocolate instead?  Does it have to be either-or?  Or could it be possible to have both?

Jesus has been gently and not-so-gently reminding me of my desire for home.  He has shown me that it is in fact more than just a desire, but is essential for every human being in order to truly thrive.  What's the point of stepping into your life's calling if you feel alone and unsheltered?  Isn't that why so many missionaries come back tired and defeated?  It's like the child who whimpers out through broken sobs, "I just want to go home."  We all know what it feels like.  So why do we try to push past that?  Shouldn't our lives, whether simple or great, all be lived within the context of home?  Home should be a reality that we carry with us wherever we go - a reality that we belong even when our feet wander throughout the world.

We all know the old proverb, "Home is where the heart is."  But do we truly know what that means?  I think that this is the desire of every human being, to have our hearts rooted in a place that is safe, a place that we belong.  It should become a measuring stick for our lives.  Am I at home in this environment?  Am I at home in this relationship?  Am I at home with Jesus?  And when we know that we are home in our hearts, why not take that place on a string and go wherever the Lord is leading?
Just a thought...