Longing for Home

“Home, home, can I forget thee? ….Dearest and happiest home”. These are the lines of the song that my music teacher used to teach me chords on the piano when I was very young. Although I stopped attending piano tutorials not very long after that particular lesson, the lines of that song followed me into my adult life. It made me realise how much home has been a fascination for me even as a very young boy. Or, better put, I have been searching for home all my life. I am grateful to God that I have never been homeless even though I have always felt unhomed. I remember, as an undergraduate, how I used to stay back in school during holidays not because my family did not want me but because of my existential yearning and my homesickness for a place I have never been, a place I so desperately wanted to call home. I moved to another country as an adult but I still could not dust away this feeling of ­unhomeliness–not homelessness. I found an answer to this age-long question after hearing Gloria Gaither say that “we’ll never feel at home until we get home”. It dawned on me that home is a spiritual thing. “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come”(Hebrews 13:14).

I don’t think I am the only one who has been troubled by this feeling. As a matter of fact, there are thousands of Christian songs centred on this unquenchable longing for home (This world is not my home, I’ll meet you the morning, the great homecoming, going home and many more). This is why I get very surprised when Christians nowadays refrain from speaking about that heavenly home. I don’t know if it is because we are afraid of our mortality here on earth or that we have simply forgotten that we are pilgrims on earth. Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God (Hebrews 11:10). I have come to realise that dreaming and speaking about our heavenly home has a way of shaping our perspective. It can help us live with eternity in view. It constantly reminds us that there is a place better than this fallen world. A place where there is no sorrow, death or sickness. A place where we won’t worry about money or shelter. A place where there is no darkness but an everlasting light. Aspiring for this heavenly place does not mean that we carelessly crave death even though we are persuaded that, for a child of God, to die is gain (Philippians 1:21).

Japan is said to have the most powerful passport in the year 2020 but nothing compares to having a heavenly passport (salvation). “But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ”(Philippians 3:20). I have been privileged to visit different cities of the world but nothing compares to the city of God which John caught a glimpse of in Revelations 21. The captivating High Gothic architecture of Cologne, the cultural fascinations of Vienna and the beautiful skyscrapers and beaches of Sidney cannot even be compared to this place of eternal beauty. The New Jerusalem has its streets laden with gold; it has the tree of life bearing twelve fruits. There is no darkness in that city neither are there artificial lights because the Son of God is the light that brightens it. No wonder Jesus spoke about this home with much gusto (John 14:2,3).

Do you often find it the difficult to dust away the feeling that ­– despite all the accomplishment and the happiness that the world offers– there’s got to be more? Do you often spot threads of vanity in your worldly pursuit of happiness? If so, you need start storing up your treasure in heaven because where you heart is, there your treasure is (Matthew 6:21).  Home is (should be) where the heart is. May God put the yearnings for heaven in our hearts. May the cares of the world not shift our focus away from home. May the vicissitudes of life not make us forget that we are pilgrims here on earth. May we always look forward to that great homecoming by the crystal river, where there is no sense of finitude but everlasting peace and joy. May we always look for that heavenly city where there is no feeling of alienation or tenuous belongings. May we yearn for that home of the soul , a land where we never grow old. May we always dream of our home beyond the blue sky, a home where we never roam from the throne.