August 6, 2018

Weekly Reflection – Coming Home

What were we coming home to?

My family recently moved some 500 KM to Sugar Land, Texas, less than an hour from where I was born. Many of my relatives still live in this area. El Campo, Texas is a small farming and ranching community that is rich in its Czech heritage. I remember Czech being spoken on the sidewalks of the town when I was growing up. And there was the ever-present “polka party” on the radio!  Just south of El Campo is Danevang, a farming village founded by immigrants from Denmark.

They spoke Danish, enjoyed a Danish community center, and affiliated with the Danish Lutheran Church. And they continued to speak Danish at home so the children could write their grandparents back in the old country. Both communities used their respective heritage to “look back” across the waters to the homeland they would never be able to return to.

Our spiritual lives are in some ways very similar. You see, we left our “homeland” when we chose to go our own way in life rather than staying close to home. We became separated from God by what is commonly referred to as sin. But, much like the prodigal son, we have had the blessing of returning to the Father through the sacrificial life of Jesus Christ.  He has shown us the way through His teachings and those of the apostles and those who followed them.

It feels good to be“at home” in the body of Christ, the church that Jesus lived and died for! That is our true home, one we need not look back across the waters of life for another. We need not yearn to return to a place that perhaps never really was. And the truth of it is that the Father never left us. We left Him, but he was always here, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

Bottom line: Let us rejoice this week at “being home” and let us love one another as Christ has loved us.

Blessings and peace,

Chaplain Allen
chaplain@nationsu.edu
chaplainscorner.org

Read the Chaplain’s reflection, On a Week in Europe