Come back Home

This article I dedicate to all my friends at UKM Perkeb, Inti Nilai CF and HELP CF. Will be missing you all and thank you for your time, friendship and fellowship. May God bless your ministry in campus.

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore)

“My home is here. I feel just as at home overseas, but I think my roots are here and my language is here and my rage is here and my hope is here. You know where your home is because you’ve been there long enough. You know all the peculiarities of the people around you, because you are one of them. And naturally, memories are the most important. Your home is where your favorite memories are.” (Pieter-Dirk Uys)

Have you felt this way before? When you grow up, home is a place you wanting to leave but once you grow old, home is where you wanting to get back to. If you have a family or at least a place called 'home', both of us knows that home is not the one tame place in the world, it is the one wild place in the world of rules of ‘do-and-don’t’ and a set of tablet stone of tasks such as make up your own bed, wash your own clothes or clean your own plate after every meals.

But never the less, home is where the heart can laugh without apology and shyness. Yes, I’m going back home to my hometown soon. Kuching is a place like no other. No amount of salary can separate me from my home. No bribe can keep me from voting to stay in Kuching. No other foods can compare my desire for fat, oily, high cholesterol and unhealthy foods in Kuching. If God clearly call me to go to other place, I’ll go but since He’s still silent about this – I’ll definitely stay!

May I ask; are you longing for home? Don’t you miss the place where you grow up? I heard someone said, when you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood. It’s true for me, I miss my childhood. Home is where our first childhood experience develops. Are you longing for home?

But perhaps some of you may not miss your 'home' that much. You feel like you don’t belong here on earth. Well, what you feel or longing is so much real than the reality is. Brothers and sisters, your actual home is not here… your home is with our Father in Heaven. You and I can’t fully enjoy this present place of what we called ‘home’ because the truth is God ‘has planted eternity in the human heart’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11). If you think that here on earth is your eternal ‘home’, I advise you to wake up! Hebrews 13:14 highlighted this truth, “This world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come”.

Heaven is where you belong. Jesus Christ is our promise-Bearer. Father is who you going to meet. Holy Spirit is the one who will convince you that by the Grace of God through your Faith in Christ – Heaven is your eternal home. Christians, mind you, our goal is not merely to reach Heaven but the real purpose of redemption is to be with Him who saves us from our sins. Home is abides in Christ. Home is when you see Jesus face to face. Are you longing for Home? I hope you do now.

“This world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.” (Hebrews 13:14) THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.