The Christmas season holds a lot of pain for people. Some remember dysfunctional families that got through the season by hurling insults and criticisms at one another. Some long for the Norman Rockwell Christmas, or if you’re younger, the Huxtable family gathering, or if you’re even younger, the camaraderie of The Office. Whatever it looks like, we want familiar connections with people who care about us.
Some have had those wonderful experiences, at least in our memories, and we want to go back. Life has changed, we have responsibilities, we have obligations. We want the simplicity of knowing that a new bike will fix every problem.
We want what we know! But have you noticed something… you can’t go home. Going home means we want to go back to the way things were. Even if we could gather everyone back to the same room, around the same tree, with the same gifts, it wouldn’t be the same because we’re different. More experience, more wrinkles, less time.
In the scheme of life I talk about, going back home can mean going back to our “former orientation.” God doesn’t want us to go back, but to go forward. He wants to “re-orient” our lives toward Him.
God doesn’t want us to go back home. He wants us know home where we are. He wants us to find our home in Him.
1. Celebrate Him, not the “holiday”. Celebrate his coming to this world and to your life.
2. Know that your perfect home is coming. Until then, it is perfectly normal to “feel out of place” in this place.
3. Help make a home for someone else. Let them experience the love of Christ through you. Take the initiative to invite them into your life.
I hope you find a new hope and joy in Him. How do you deal with the need to create home where you are? Who has made you “feel at home” lately?