Roaming Towards Home
Article Posted: 688 words
Have you ever been called to a place you’ve never known, an inescapable longing that pulls you to…somewhere?
Just pack a paper bag on a stick, full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and get ready to go,
because you’re going. Head out to the road and hitch a ride going somewhere. Have dreams, will travel (We’ve all felt this).
The trendy word sweeping the Pinternets these days is wanderlust. That’s an okay word, but I prefer the word globeroaming (largely because I made it up myself). I like the word roaming, because it captures this mindset perfectly: of searching for the place where we truly belong. That’s the inescapable call that whispers in the back of all of our heads.
Part of this, of course, is just a natural desire to explore God’s creation. There are some beautiful places on this earth. And that is definitely a big part of wanderlust. But I think our desires go much deeper than mere traveling. We’re searching for Home.
My previous post talked about the idea of home in various places – how we’re richer for having traveled, and for embracing many different places as home in our minds (Actually, go and read that post: link. Finished? Lovely. Now you may continue).
Growing up in one place still feels “right” to me, sometimes. Knowing the same people and building friendships from kindergarten to high school sounds incredible. I’d love to live in the same house all my life, and choose how to decorate my walls and furniture, instead of living in furnished apartments. Even shopping at the small-town supermarket and saying ‘hey’ to the cashier sounds good to me.
But at the same time, I want all of that along with all of the benefits of moving around: multiple languages, cultures, and places swimming about in my head; traveling the world and seeing God’s creation; living everyday life on a different continent – I want the best of both worlds. Why?
Humans were created to have true roots. While my previous post argued that we can put down these roots in many places, the longing remains: I want a place to call Home. Not just a house where I live, but Home. The place where I was created to be.
Sometimes I get the thought that living in one place all my life would give me that Home. We all want a Home. But really, we can’t find it here. Those of y’all who’ve lived in one place can’t find it. I’ve lived on four continents and can’t find it. This isn’t because of any flaw in us – it’s because Home isn’t on this planet. Not yet, anyways.
We were created to search for Home. It’s not here yet, but it’s coming soon. God’s making it; has already made and planned it since the beginning of time. No fluffy language: this place is called Heaven, and it’s the one place where all of us will truly and finally belong. It’s the place we were created for and the place that every waking moment is a reminder of, an echo of.
That longing we all feel will be gone someday, and not because it’s been taken away, but because it’s been satisfied! In the meantime, we’re called to live here. It’s not quite Home, but it’s close.
Here is Home for now, and we’re called to live here, for now, to the best and fullest that we can. So let’s live. Let’s fall in love – get married, start families, send our kids off, and grow old together. Let’s change the world – write books, read books, think thoughts worth thinking, compose poetry. Let’s make the world more beautiful – paint paintings, record music, write good stories worth reading.
Most of all, let’s live all of life to the best and fullest of our abilities – and look forward to the day when all of these roots, that grow imperfectly now, will one day be planted where they were created to be, and we’ll finally be in the one place where we will truly belong. Forever.
I can’t wait.