Search This Blog

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Living to Go Home

Everything in my senses says that the earth is my home. I have no memory of living any other place. All that happens to me here appears to be permanent. Everyone I know came from this place. I have no experience of visiting another place. The place I call "home" is vague at best. I continue to act like the earth is home.

But it isn't. It is a interim place of being no matter how hard or how long I want to hold onto it.

Life has four stages. Everyone goes through them. First, we exist in the mind of God. He already knows all about us even though our existence is not yet known to ourselves.

Psalm 139:16 (ESV) 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

We only existed in the mind of God. There was nothing else. We could have only been known to God if we came into a corporeal existence. God had a plan.

Then, we were conceived. It was here that our bodies were formed. It is here that we became physical. Our existence is known to us through those who bore us. Our existence is vaguely known to us through the birth experience.

Psalm 139:13 (ESV) 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

If we could have been as self-aware of ourselves as we are right now, we would have resisted being born. We didn't know the world on the outside. We had everything we needed in our mothers' wombs. We did we need to leave? God had a plan.


We were born and we grew. The memories of the womb have faded. At some time we came to know Him. He told us that He has another place for us. He promised to walk beside us. He did. It was His plan.

Jeremiah 29:11 (ESV) 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  

Even though God kept telling us about His plan to bring us home with Him, we started to believe that this earth was our home. We were glad and we wanted to enjoy this earth. In fact, we would like to stay here forever.

2 Kings 20:1-6 (ESV) 1 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’ ” 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, 3 “Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: 5 “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, 6 and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.”

But even though we might pray to live longer, God does not extend our lives forever. He has something better for us.

Now the questions are thus: At what part of the life we have already lived lacked the presence of God? When did we leave His love? When did we leave His care? When did He stop having a plan for our lives? Why should we believe that the God who knew us before we were born, knitted us together in our mothers' wombs and walked beside us all the days of our lives is going to leave us when we die?

Now, shouldn't we live like this isn't our home?  Our living has very little meaning if we live like this earth is all there is for one day we will take our last breath and we will never enjoy another thing on this earth. We will never have any satisifaction in what we have done if this is all there is.

We must live lives that will lead us to our true home like those saints of old who lived by faith.They lived with only the promise of Jesus. We live with Jesus.

Hebrews 11:13 (ESV) 13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

And living with Jesus is the only way to live to go home. This is God's plan.




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice. Well written. Not easy to write on this, convincingly, yet you wrote it well. Thanks for Ps 139:16. I just wondered if such number of days is static!

In any case, I do not believe our life is already a movie directed, and now being screened. You got it right, for believers, God is not far away, even though we don't see Him or sense Him.

Anthony Chia, high.expressions