I'm Not Home Yet

Last week my wife Jessie and I had the incredible opportunity to spend 3 ½ days at The PottersInn at Aspen Ridge outside of Colorado Springs with 4 other couples from around the US at a Pastor and Spouse Retreat.  We tacked on an extra day of rest and relaxation at the beginning of the week, and neither of us realized quite how much we needed all of it! 

There is an incredible beauty about the Rocky Mountains that I can’t even begin to explain or comprehend.  For those of us who have spent the majority of our lives in the eastern 2/3 of the US, we can’t really even begin to imagine it until we’ve been there.  This was my fourth trip to Colorado, and here’s what I particularly noticed this time:

·      Although oxygen is a little bit tougher to come by at 9,500 feet in elevation, the air is so clean and crisp.  When you ascend a flight of stairs or walk a hill, the burning in your lungs almost feels good.  It reminded me that every breath we take is a gift from God. 

·      Here in Western PA, I’ve heard that 75% of the days throughout the year are cloudy or overcast.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure feels like that for most of the days from November through March.  In Colorado, it seems that the sun is always shining, and despite the chill of being at elevation and the wind, the sunshine is always warm and inviting.  It reminded me that even in times of darkness and gloom, that the light of Jesus is always waiting to burst forth.

·      The terrain around Colorado Springs is a study in contrasts.  In the high plains at the foot of the Rockies, when you look to the east, everything is drab – tans, browns, olives, and muted greens.  Even most of the buildings and houses are built to blend in.  It’s funny to see familiar franchises – McDonalds, Starbucks and Walmart – that are built to blend in to their surroundings.  At the Potters Inn, we were in the shadow of the snow dusted Pikes Peak and could see the stunning snow covered Sangre de Christo mountains to the south.  The evergreen forests were a deep, rich green.  From one of our vantage points on a hike to The Crags in Pike National Forest, we could look out over the landscape and see three of the most shimmering, crystal blue reservoirs that I’ve ever seen.  It reminded me that even in the wilderness when most things seem dead and hopeless, that there is abundant, beautiful life all around.

Our time in Colorado last week was incredible.  It was incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating from a physical standpoint.  How wonderful and beautiful it was to spend 4 days alone with my wife away from our kids and to reconnect in ways we haven’t connected in years.  As parents with kids who are 12, 10 and 3, physical rest and times of peace and solitude are at a premium.  We had permission to rest physically, mentally and spiritually.

But our retreat also included some intense, even exhausting work, in our own hearts and minds and in our relationship as a husband and wife.  It was work that otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t made the commitment to get away from home and our kids for a few days. 

Despite being absolutely amazed by my surroundings, each time I’ve visited Colorado, Colorado has never felt like home to me.  I’ve always enjoyed my time there, but it’s never felt like home.  As we boarded our flight from Denver to Pittsburgh last Friday night, I knew that I was going home and I was looking forward to it.

One of the greatest challenges of our faith journey with Jesus is learning how to take what we’ve experienced in those deep, life-changing, mountain top experiences with God and to live them out in our daily lives.  In today’s reading from 1 Peter 1 in our Daily New Testament Reading Plan, the Apostle Peter talks about this in the first chapter of his first letter.  He begins his letter with this salutation in v.1: “. . . To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Bithynia . . .”

As followers of Jesus, we’ve always got to remember that we’re not home yet.  As people “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ . . . (v.2),” we are strangers in the land in which we live. 

In the days since I’ve been home from Colorado, I’ve had a deep longing to go back.  Not to live there, but to drink in more of what I was experiencing in my journey with Jesus in a place and time that wasn’t cluttered with the demands of daily life.  It’s certainly not a complaint because I’m blessed to be able to do the things I do and live the life I live, but there is a longing to escape again and to just be still and quiet with God.  It’s good to be on the mountain top – literally and metaphorically – because that’s what we’re made for.  That’s when we’re most alive and aware of the transforming work that God needs to do in our lives. 

But that’s not where most of us live.  We live in the Pontuses, the Galatias, the Cappadocias, the Asias and the Bithynias.  We live in places and have demands in our lives that constantly remind us of the fact that even though this might be home on earth, this is not the home that we were created for.  Although we don’t get to live on the mountain top, the grace and majesty of God that we experience there helps us to navigate the daily grind of our lives.

One thing that Scripture always promises to followers of Jesus is this: we will have trials and face problems in life.  Peter says so in v.6.   But look at God’s promise to us in v.7.  “These (trials) have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be prove genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Our faith in our daily life is a precious gift – more precious and of greater worth than gold.  Realizing that we’re not home yet and that we’re not yet all that God has created us to be, is an exercise in faith building.  One of the deepest things I learned in Colorado last week is that I still have a long way to go in believing and living out the promises of God in my life in every area of my life – as a follower of Jesus, as a husband, as a dad, as a friend and as a pastor. 

There are days when I hate the fact that I’m not home yet.  I hate the fact that I’m a stranger in a strange land.  And yet as I endure the process of becoming like Jesus and being transformed, my hope is in Jesus and what I have in him – new life because of his resurrection; the riches of heaven as an heir of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; the power of God that shields my life; and the joy that I can have in all of these things (v.v. 4-6). 

As you and I struggle to live this life and to become like Jesus, we have incredible hope as we journey towards our heavenly home.  Jesus isn’t an escape from this life, and isn’t an escape from our trials and problems.  The power of Jesus at work in us transforms us as we long to be home.  As Rick Warren once said, the power of Jesus at work in us turns our test into a testimony; our mess into a message and our misery into a ministry.  This is what it means to live as strangers in a strange land longing to be home while we hold onto the hope that we have in Jesus.