homeless

I caught just a brief piece of a radio story about a homeless man in California and I thought about all the homeless people in our country..... The men wearing dirty army surplus jackets and frayed jeans with scruffy beards and matted hair who stand at intersections in urban areas with hand-scrawled signs saying "Homeless and hungry...please help". There may be more of them these days since our economy has cast many out of work and wars have a way of creating some veterans who just can't seem to merge back into the flow of civilian life after the trauma of the front lines. When I was little they were called "bums" and I was a little afraid of them. But I think that "homeless" is probably a more accurate term. And then I realized that we all start this life "homeless". Even if we come from loving homes and families our inborn nature is to be separate from our spiritual home. We actually wander and wonder through the roadways and intersections of life until we discover the One who has come for us. We are all homeless until we find our true home to be in a close relationship with our Maker. We know that it's Home because there is that peace that can only come from unconditional acceptance...like the kind of love we knew growing up in our childhood homes (and some have not experienced even this kind of love). It's almost like we are all out there with signs and scruffy clothes declaring to the world, "Lost, lonely and empty...please help" at the intersections of our days.....until we realize that the old story of a God who delivered a family nation from slavery and His Son, who died on a cruel cross, is a story with personal meaning...and when we grasp the outstretched and nail-pierced hands of the carpenter from Nazareth....we are finally home!

John 14:²³ Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.