WHERE IS YOUR HOME? by Vicki Taylor

Most people who really know me know that I like to be home. I like to be in my easy chair and read, write, or just rest. Now, to most people that may sound like I’m a loner, reclusive, or just plain weird, but I like it that way. I like being at home. I’m gone all day at work and when I get home all I want to do is stay there. Home is “safe” for me. It is my shelter, my comfort, my place where I can be me. I have my books, my garden, my Snuggie and my Babe. Yes, life is good. Home.

I really felt this way until God got my attention. He has a way of changing our sight.  Acts 17:28 says, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” This simply means that God is our home. Not here. Now this may be my earthly home where all my “things” are that I have accumulated, but this is not the home where my heart should be longing for. My heart should be longing for Heaven. That is where I will be living for eternity. Home, where Christ is, where my Heavenly Father waits for me, and where my true family is and I will be complete. 

God is my home…unfortunately we allow earthly distractions to let our minds wander too far from the things that matter most. Him! And it’s so easy to slip into that “interrupted, easily distracted frame of mind” when all we need to do is to live more at home. But the difference is which home? We find ourselves comfortable in our homes with all our “stuff” and in our own little comfort zones and we tend to leave God at the door. We become so preoccupied that we no longer hear Him knocking. Then we wonder where God is when the storms of life come blasting through our lives. Well, guess what? He’s still at the door of our hearts knocking, waiting to be asked in.  

I know I refer to Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts often, but I can honestly tell you that book has given me a different perspective on how I see God. I keep my door open for Him in every opportunity. I want Him active in all areas of my life, every single one of them. I need Him!!! I am learning to give thanks in any and every situation He allows in my life, the good and the bad. Yes, even the painful.  

I’ll end by sharing with you all that on Christmas Eve my husband and I went to see the movie the Hobbit. It was a great movie and being an artist, I loved the beautiful colors of New Zealand. But there was a line in the movie where Bilbo Baggins was on this adventure with the dwarfs and he was whining about going back home because he did not feel he was needed on this adventure. (You can see why I was relating to Mr. Baggins) Then Mr. Baggins said, “But I need to be home, where my books are and my easy chair. I need to be in my garden, you know home.”  I turned to Babe and looked at him and said, “Oh my gosh, I’m a Hobbit.”  To which he said he was very thankful I did not have big hairy feet. Gotta love a man with that perspective.

Let’s keep our hearts set on our home where Christ is and keep our minds on Him. John 14:1 says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms… and I am going there to prepare a place just for you.”  Kinda makes you homesick, doesn’t it?