Road Trip: Homesick

My kids saw snow for the first time last week on our family vacation. They loved it; for awhile anyway. However, by day 5 of our 7 day trip they were ready to be back home. They decided the snow was nice to visit but they wanted to get back to the greener pastures of our own backyard.

They were homesick. They missed their own beds. They missed their dogs. They missed their yard. The missed everything about our home, even things that I never even considered.

They weren't homesick because Texas is better than Colorado. Both places have their pluses and minuses. They were homesick because they missed their "home". They all knew, even the four year-old, that as nice as Colorado was, it was not home.

Do you ever get homesick? I don't mean when your on a vacation or on a business trip. I mean do you ever feel like this big world we live in is not really home? As a Christian, this world is not my home. My home is the new earth we'll enjoy someday. The problem I have however, is that I am not often homesick enough.

All too often, I love this world and don't even think about the new home waiting for me. I guess that is expected. After all, I've never been to this new home. How can I miss it?

I should miss it, because it is real and because God's Spirit in me yearns for it. This new home where I belong is not right in front of me where I can touch it. I get too easily wrapped up in my current world and all of its temporary pleasures. I don't have time to give any thought to the fantastic world God has waiting for me.

A good barometer on where I am with my walk with God is whether or not I'm feeling a little homesick. If I start to feel too much at home where I'm at, it's time to spend more time thinking of Him and less of me.

John 17:14-19 (ESV)
14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
15 i do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.