A Place To Call Home

Jeremiah 29:10 (NLT)

This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.

As John read this verse aloud a month ago, I thought back to a lyric I’d written years ago. It went something like this: 

Look at the boy / the one that all ignore / can you see him dying, fading away
Internally life left him / in the past, he struggled on / but now his time has come
He tried everything
He tried nothing at all
Always longing for a place to call home

The stench of death in the air / the breath has left his lungs / his heart is empty and his mind is bored / the numbing effects of the painkillers have left / and he’s found hopeless once again
He tried everything
He tried nothing at all
Always longing for a place to call home

Found no peace within / illusions of this hell / living in this world but not part of it /
should have seen this coming / now he’s gone away / extent of his misery never known
He tried everything
He tried nothing at all
Always longing for a place to call home
I want to go home
I want to go home
I want to go home
Home.

That “desperation” driving me to pen those words in the throes of depression is evident in an even greater level as God announces here in Jeremiah, “I want you to come home.”

Whether its been the Biblical 70 years or simply a couple, God comes with an invitation to draw us home. Home for us is Heaven, which makes us homeless so long as we live on this earth. However, God has established fellowships of believers like Refuge (foster homes if you will) to prepare us for our future home. To give us an opportunity to love and to be loved. To give us shelter from the ravaging storms of life. To give us instruction as to the paths we’ll walk. To give us hope in the midst of our hopeless situations. These things are the good things He promises. And we’re blessed to witness them within our body.

If you’ve been devoted to these devotions, you possess the desperation I spoke of in the poem. May this Scripture, poem, and the “Back to the Basics” series be a constant reminder of our need for God and our finding our home with him.