I Just Want To Go Home

It was the end of a long week filled with assignments to be completed and work to be done. Billy was at the end of his rope. He’d already missed several days of recess in order to get late assignments turned into his teachers. When the teacher called him to the hallway to discuss a particular Social Studies assignment that had not been handed in, Billy could take no more. He bolted for the doors at the end of the hallway and hit the exit. The light shining in from outside beckoned him, he thought to himself, “this is going to be great, I am getting out of here.” Billy hit the doors before his teacher could respond and smiled inside as fresh filled his lungs. He turned to the right and hit the after burners, running as fast as his ten year old feet could carry him – FREEDOM! Calling for assistance, another teacher soon fled in pursuit of Billy. If Billy had turned left, he could have been an eighth of a mile away by the time any adult exited the building. As is was, his decision to turn right trapped him in a dead end. All the exterior doors to the school were locked and found himself standing at the foot of a ten foot high fence. When Billy turned and saw the teacher he burst into tears and sobbed, “I just want to go home.” The teacher told Billy to accompany him and they would get contact mom and figure out if he could go home. Billy reentered the school, phone calls were made and Billy was able to make it through the end of the eternal Friday. It is not all that difficult to identify with Billy. I sometimes get frustrated and upset with how things are going and jump into an action that I am sure is going to provide me with the freedom I desire. Before I know it I am trapped in a dead end, crying on the inside and thinking to myself, ‘I just want to go home.’ I believe all of us have this desire to go home, to be reunited with the one who gave us life. Often this desire is unnamed and we continue with vain attempts to satisfy our longing. We are born to live connected with and at home with God. John, the Jesus follower, writes about this (going home) in the fourteenth chapter of his book in the New Testament. Jesus is talking to his followers and says,

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”

His followers begin to doubt and question how they will be able to get there, to get home and Jesus speaks the words that may be so common that they have lost their impact. He makes the bold statement:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

Jesus is the way we get home. If we want to become at home in our own skin, comfortable and at ease with the world and the people around us, then Jesus is the one who takes us home. This means letting go of the games we play and the masks we wear in order to convince ourselves and others that we are okay. Jesus is not one way among many ways, he is the way. Now, this does not limit in any way how he can reach each of us individually, but the way home is through Jesus. All other ways leave us in dead ends staring up at a high fences with tears running down our faces.

Blessings,
Marty Hale

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