Longing for the Heart’s True Home
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
The Wind in the Willows provided us with the imagery for a longing for home last week. Mole finds his old home and leaves it again for adventures in the “upper world.” This week I want to look at that longing for home in a different context.
Longing is an ancient word from Old English with its first recorded usa more than a thousand years ago. It means a “strong, persistent desire or craving, especially for something unattainable or distant.”[1] C. S. Lewis catches the essence of that feeling in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where, under the rule of the White Witch, it’s “always winter, but never Christmas.”
What are some of the things you have longed for? I’m sure some of those longings have been fulfilled. After all, Christmas did finally come for Narnia. But some have never been fulfilled. And one of those for Christians is the deep longing for our heavenly home. Jesus in John 14:2-3 tells us He is going to the Father to prepare a home for us. Paul, in Philippians 3:20-21 says, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” And John, in Revelation 21:1-3, gives us a glimpse of that future home.
Sometimes something deep in us catches a scent of that new home we have been promised, just as Mole recognized the scent of his old home in The Wind in the Willows story. How, then, should we respond since, unlike the storybook character, we can’t pop in for a visit? The answer the writer of Hebrews proposes is faith. The 11th chapter of Hebrews says faith isn’t about what we see but confidence and assurance that we will receive what we don’t see. Then there follows what is usually called the “Hall of Fame” listing of people who lived by the hope of receiving what they have been promised even though they never received it in this world. They are all commended for their faith. It concludes: “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Heb. 11:39-40).
Our little friend, Mole, in the story went back to his active life reassured that his home was waiting for him. We can do the same when we catch a whiff of eternity: relish the scent, meditate on the promises of Scripture, and go on in faith to the “Therefore” of Hebrews 12:1-3:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
(Photo credit: RA Stites rural Benton County, Arkansas)
