By Pastor Mark Moreno

Belonging

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

There are so many ways that people speak about home, different cliches and phrases that capture our relationship to the place where we lay our head, hang our hat and call home.

It has been said, “You can’t go home” or “Home is where your heart is.” Today’s image is my childhood home. At least, it is the address I most associate with my home. I honestly don’t know how many places I have lived, I suspect the number is over fifty. But who is counting?

The picture is a far cry from what I remember: A spacious yard, another home was on the property next door. There were no fences, no carport, no sidewalks, but there was a ditch that ran along the street. I learned how to ride a bike on that street and crashed into the now absent ditch.

What do you picture when you hear the word “home”? Is it something that is elusive, a faint memory? Or do you picture where you live now and treasure it? Maybe something in-between.

Scripture speaks at length about “home”: Perhaps my favorite is in John 14,

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God;  believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”  Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.
English Standard Version

In this life, we may feel like we don’t have a home, a place of rest and belonging. We may feel that we once had it, but now it is gone. Sadly, for some, they feel that they never had it. But the good news from our Lord is that we DO have a home and we DO have a place of belonging with Him!

This is all accomplished through Jesus and His life, death, and resurrection. Ironically, Jesus said in Matthew 8,

“And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
English Standard Version

Jesus also experienced the longing that we have, and in love, He made a home for us with Him!

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado