Home

Traveling doesn't come easily for me. I'm a bit of a pack rat. I always try to take my whole world with me. I think I'm just way too comfortable with home to leave it all behind. I always want to be there. It's a funny thing, home.

I've been abroad for a little over three weeks now. I'm kind of getting in that stride of being comfortable away from home. As soon as you leave home, you feel that tear deep inside, like a part of your soul is being left behind. You wonder aimlessly for a while, wishing you could go back. No matter how many amazing things you see over the course of a day, when you lie down at night, you long for home. I think Jesus understood this feeling when he told his disciples the extreme cost of following him, no place to lay your head. You must, for a season of this life, abandon your right to home. You must answer the call to "go."

But it is so innate in us. Wherever we are, we don't want to go. This previous weekend, I took a little trip away from Florence to visit the Isle of Capri, Pompey and a few other spots. It was beautiful and inspiring. However, when I stepped off the bus back in Florence, I felt that warm, welcome rush... familiarity. I was back in a place I knew; if only for a week, it was familiar to me. There is a gradation there. Florence is much more familiar than the Southern Italian coast, but when I think about Northwest Arkansas, I know that I'm not really home here in Florence either.

I think there are some very good, right things in the desire for home. I think God puts that in our hearts. You can see it in the Israelites fight for the promised land. But, sometimes God calls us to let that go for a season. I pray that God will give me the faith to invest deeply in the places he plants me, but also to always be ready to go. I have to remember that home is coming...