Going home
Spending time at home is both a blessing and a curse. I was able to spend a lot of time with my parents and brothers this last week, but not a lot with everyone I wanted to. There is so much of my former life there that I want to reconnect with everyone I used to do life with. It seems as if there is never enough time to do and see everything I want to when I am planning the trip back home. Getting schedules to match up sometimes is extremely hard.
But while I love going home there is something about coming home. I have a weird dichotomy where I literally have two homes. One in Ohio where I spent 28 years and one in North Carolina where I have spent 13 years. Both places are a huge part of me and who I am. I grew up in a small town surrounded by the same kids all through school. That molded me. My family molded me. Doing life up there molded me. I get teased at work and in my life when the extent of my naivety comes to light. Then there are the past 13 years where I have been in what started out to be a foreign land. The people and experiences and life that has happened has refined me, changed me, and pruned me. It hasn’t been easy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
There is someone else who understood a duality of places. I was reading in John this week and came across this verse. “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home and to leave me alone; and yet I am not alone for the Father is with me.” John 16:32 NASB Earlier Jesus is telling his disciples that He is not of this world, but came from the Father. Isn’t that how we, as His children, are supposed to see this world?
We were discussing today in church in my life group about evangelism and how it has such a scary connotation with today’s Christians. We are either too sheltered, too worldly, too bold, too timid to understand true evangelism. We need to understand that it isn’t what we know intellectually about Christ, but what we know based on our experiences, life, and the way we live it. Christ has given us a guide in that we are only to show love to one another. Not an easy thing to do in today’s society with how divided we are. However, shouldn't it be? If the most perfect, holy, and blameless being ever to walk this earth can have dinner with the most wretched of humans, how can I not share with my coworkers the true meaning of having peace? Evangelism isn’t scary, it is just showing the people that are in your world why you are different and have hope no matter what has happened or is going to happen.
But while I love going home there is something about coming home. I have a weird dichotomy where I literally have two homes. One in Ohio where I spent 28 years and one in North Carolina where I have spent 13 years. Both places are a huge part of me and who I am. I grew up in a small town surrounded by the same kids all through school. That molded me. My family molded me. Doing life up there molded me. I get teased at work and in my life when the extent of my naivety comes to light. Then there are the past 13 years where I have been in what started out to be a foreign land. The people and experiences and life that has happened has refined me, changed me, and pruned me. It hasn’t been easy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.
There is someone else who understood a duality of places. I was reading in John this week and came across this verse. “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home and to leave me alone; and yet I am not alone for the Father is with me.” John 16:32 NASB Earlier Jesus is telling his disciples that He is not of this world, but came from the Father. Isn’t that how we, as His children, are supposed to see this world?
We were discussing today in church in my life group about evangelism and how it has such a scary connotation with today’s Christians. We are either too sheltered, too worldly, too bold, too timid to understand true evangelism. We need to understand that it isn’t what we know intellectually about Christ, but what we know based on our experiences, life, and the way we live it. Christ has given us a guide in that we are only to show love to one another. Not an easy thing to do in today’s society with how divided we are. However, shouldn't it be? If the most perfect, holy, and blameless being ever to walk this earth can have dinner with the most wretched of humans, how can I not share with my coworkers the true meaning of having peace? Evangelism isn’t scary, it is just showing the people that are in your world why you are different and have hope no matter what has happened or is going to happen.
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