Going Home Again

Thomas Wolfe wrote a classic book entitled, You Can’t Go Home Again. The idea is that things change. If you are away and return, it is never the same. The Hebrew children spent forty futile years trying to go home again. Their experience, recorded in Numbers, is summarized with the cry, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt. (Num. 14:4)” So is it true that we can’t go home again? Yes, if home is a place. I spent last weekend with 65 people to whom and with whom I ministered approximately thirty years ago. We told many of the same stories, even if embellished a bit, laughed at the same jokes, grieved over the same recollections of sadness. True, it wasn’t the same, but for a little while, it was close enough. It was close enough because ultimately home for Christians revolves, not around place, but around people. That being true, one of the awesome things about the family of God is that you can go home again. Anytime you’re around God’s people, you’re around family and any time you’re with family, you’re home. For a few hours at least, it was good to be home again.