HOME IS WHERE GOD IS


Iowa Prairie in Bloom

Part 2 of "We're Where God Wants Us to Be and That's Good!
Philippians 4:10-13

 I'm a pale, fair-haired northerner who is genetically programmed to be up to my armpits in snow nine months of the year.  Home for me was paper birches, trembling aspens, cedars and swamps, and the smell of pine forests.  Home was where there were three or more generations of my family living in the same county and natural, clear water lakes where we swam and fished in summer.

When we moved to Iowa, I couldn't understand why the current of God's will brought us to Iowa, far away from home, from the forests, from family, from small town living to the large city of Des Moines, Iowa.  It was both ecological and culture shock  I fought the flow, clinging to my homesickness and creating emotional turmoil around me.

On Paul's missionary journeys, God took him to many different places.  From the accounts we read in the book of Acts, he encountered many hard times.  He was beat up, stoned, and ran out of towns.  He was shipwrecked and bitten by a poisonous snake.  Companions desserted him, his detractors scorned and derided him, and he was arrested and put in prison.  And yet, in spite of all of this, Paul wrote this to the Philippians from prison:

 "I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles."  Philippians 4:13-10 (The Message)

Paul had learned that wherever God led him, whatever the hardships and good times were, God was with him in that place, and that was good.  By letting go and going with the flow of God's will for Paul's life, he wasn't wasting energy struggling against the current, like I had been.  He was able to see God's grace working in him and through him.

In the first chapter of the letter to the Philippians, Paul excitedly shared with his friends in Philippi what was happening.  Because people knew that he was imprisoned for the sake of the gospel, guards and other non-christians became curious and visited Paul to find out more about Jesus Christ.  Believers, emboldened and encouraged by what Paul was going through, were preaching the good news with more fervor.

It took me a long time to figure this out, but when I let go and stopped fighting God, I realized that home was not necessarily the place I grew up in.  Wherever I am with God, it is a place of beauty, loving community and grace.  Home is with God.

I am home.  Home right now is a place where the summers are too hot and too humid, and my life is not free of problems and challenges.  I still miss Michigan and my family, but the skies here are so blue and filled with clouds like no place I've ever been. There is the reassuring rhythmn of planting and harvest and the beauty of prairies and oak savannahs.

My circle of family has been enclarged by sister and brother friends and by the loving community of the church.  Here, my husband and I have grown together in ways so deep that it takes my breath away, even after nearly thirty-four years.

And each day, I am amazed and humbled by what the grace of God is doing in me and through me.

I am home, and I am learning each day to be more content in the presence of God.  I am where God wants me to be, and that is so good!

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