Going Home Again

Please forgive me for the heaviness of my last post. I had a rare moment where I got caught up in statistics and facts. Don't fear. It probably won't happen more than once a year or so.

Over the past year, God has been teaching me that the only place a believer can truly be comfortable is wherever He is leading us. But therein lies the rub. It's an easy thing to say you want to follow Jesus. It is a far more complicated thing to actually know where He's leading you.

I had a chance to "go home again" in a way today and it was a frightening, unsettling, bizarre, yet completely wonderful experience. Ever been there? Thomas Wolfe once said "You can't go home again." I think he was right. And wrong.

Let me explain. If "home" to you is the way things used to be then, no, you probably can't go home again. Because circumstances and people are constantly changing. And if you go back to whatever it was - church, hometown, old relationship - with the expectation that things will be exactly the same, you will be very disappointed. Expectations are what cause us disappointment. One of the greatest truths I have come to know as a disciple of Christ is that the only thing that never changes is God Himself. And if you have expectations of any human you will, at some point, be completely disappointed.

But I must disagree with Wolfe at the same time I agree with him. Sometimes you must go home again. I discovered today that, indeed, things were not the same. Additionally, there were loose ends that I left unraveling everywhere in my heart. I needed to go home to realize this. I could have spent the rest of my life pushing those issues down in my heart, but they would be no more healed than they were when I left. And it's not within human power to mold my heart. That's a work that must be done by God alone. But sometimes you need to be in the thing to accept that fact.

God is bigger than any past experience you or I have. He can handle it and He's waiting for you to let Him. Because you didn't go through it without His knowledge and permission in the first place. Let Him handle it. If you don't think He can - you just might need to remember that God is who He says He is. I know it's a lesson of which I am reminded regularly.