I am sitting in the Senai Airport just outside the city of Jahore Bahru in Malasia. The air is sultry. If I wasn’t feeling melancholy (and therefore poetic), I’d say it was merely hot and sticky. The local flora is breathtaking but I do not know the names. I cannot read the signs. I am 10,000 miles from home and it does not help me to know that I cannot get any farther from my loved ones in the U. S.–unless I leave the planet. They are almost exactly on the other side of the world. The Christians here have been very kind. But I do not speak their native tongue and when they speak mine, I must strain to understand. No doubt, they do the same with me.
And their food is so different. It’s not that I object to the idea of putting cucumber and raw turnip and pineapple and sour mango and uncooked squid tentacles in a salad, covered with prawn sauce, hot chili pepper and peanuts, but my mouth and my mind have a serious time trying to categorize and file the resulting taste. Mouth and mind are agreed on this one–called rojak (pronounced ro-ja). Nothing like this has passed the palate before. Nothing even close. It also seems to be unanimous that it can be a very long time before it happens again.
The truth of it is–I’m homesick. I am not a stranger to travel and I have been homesick before. And when you are homesick, there are only a few things that help.
First, keep busy. Occupation of the mind and body go a long way to keep the soul from pining for home. That’s my problem now. I sit waiting for my flight.
Second, when you can’t keep the thought away, anticipate the joy of going home. It can be a taste of the real thing.
Third, if you can, call home. Although it’s a long way from it, it is the next best thing to being there. Somehow our loved ones seem closer when we can hear their voices, imagine their smiles of surprise.
Really, though, there is only one cure for homesickness. Go home.
Ah, home. My real home. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Heaven–as home. Isn’t it a heart-stopping truth that anyone from this rebel-race of humanity should think of God’s home as his own? We–who spoiled His fair creation and (infinitely worse) executed His only Son–we are heaven-bound!
All the power, wisdom, or vaunted goodness of men could never open heaven to us. Only divine grace could find the way; only divine love could afford it. And when our blessed Saviour ascended into heaven, now a real Man, He took our affections captive with Him, for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” We long for heaven because we long for Him. But more, God sent His Spirit into our hearts to add another mighty strand to the cable that links us to heaven and home. Is it any wonder we cry, “Abba, Father,” in expectancy awaiting the return of His Son, our Bridegroom?
Is it possible not to feel at home in a place you have always been? It is. And is it possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been? It certainly is. So what do you do then? Follow the same rules for earthly homesickness: Occupy till He comes; set your mind on things above; and call home as often as you like.
What is our home like? We have only a hint of it. Mostly we are told what heaven is not. I recall being at a children’s meeting in Oakland, California where the previous week’s topic had been “Heaven.” The teacher quizzed the children, “What will be in heaven, and you’re glad it’s going to be there?” Then, “What will not be in heaven and you’re glad it’s not going to be there?”
A little boy in the front row, snuggled into his mother’s arm, tentatively half-raised his hand. It was obvious he did not expect to be asked. But the teacher noticed him and haunched down in front of him. “Yes?” he asked tenderly.
If he could, the little fellow pushed himself ever farther into his mother’s side. Then, timidly, “There will be no more shyness.”
Yes, that’s right, my boy. Whatever it is that grips the heart with fear, or the mind with doubt, or the body with pain, or the soul with grief–blessedly it will not be there. Strange, isn’t it. The very things that make us long for heaven won’t be there.
Home sweet home.