Searching for a Place

Home is not a place to be afraid of. In fact it's the opposite, home is a place to come back to, a place to feel a sense of belonging and peace, not fear. Many of us are searching for a place to feel like that, to feel like home to us.

This search for a place is an interesting one and I wonder actually if in our world today that place where we feel safe, where we feel like we are home, might not be physical. It might not be a where or a what but a who.

When I think of the places that feel like home to me actually it's not about the physical house, its about the people.

My family provide a sense of home for me and interestingly they have moved from the house I grew up in but when we go to visit them it still feels like going home.

Maybe in our search for a place we should be thinking about who we are connecting with not where we connect with them. Home can be the place where our friends, family, church community are.

I want to suggest a connection that will help us discover our place – connection to God.

If the search for a place, for a home is about feeling connected, feeling part of something, feeling secure, finding an identity then I don’t know about you but God does that for me. With God I feel connected to someone bigger than me, someone who has a plan and a purpose, someone who knows what is going on, someone who provides me with a foundation, a reason for all this and he provides me with an identity. I know that he values me, I am rooted in someone.

The Bible says that we are made in the image of God. That is something amazing. It also says that I am important to God, that even before I was born, God knew me, knew about me, was interested in me.

This blows my mind, I believe it to be true, I believe it to be true for you too, no matter what you think about God.

Prodigal

Home is not a place where we are forced or blackmailed to go to. Our search for a place is a search for somewhere we feel like we belong – a place that isn’t forced on us, somewhere we long to be.

There’s a story that Jesus told. The story was about a boy who grows up and wants to leave home.

Luke 15:11-32

¹¹ Jesus continued: There was a man who had two sons.

¹² The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

¹³ Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.

¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.

¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.

¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no-one gave him anything.

¹⁷ When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!

¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'

²⁰ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹ The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

²² But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate.

²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

²⁵ Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.

²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.

²⁷ 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'

²⁸ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.

²⁹ But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

³¹ 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'

The son in the story was returning home – to a relationship with his father.

Jesus told that story as a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for the relationship available to us with God.

God is the father, we are the son.

We run away from God, go our own way, live our own lives, but God is there, waiting for us, like the father waiting for his son, watching out for us, longing for us to return home.

There’s another story about two builders.

Matthew 7:24-27

²⁴ Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

What is the foundation for our lives? That is the question Jesus was posing in that story.

One thing we can be certain of is that things will change. We may move house, we may loose people that we are connected too, that have provided us with a sense of place.

There are no guarantees living in the high paced, highly disconnected world of the 21st century.

My view is that the best way to cope with that is to ensure a good foundation for your life.

But where or more importantly who is home for you?

What or who have you built your life on?

Is it temporary things, on material things that may only be temporary, is it on people who may come and go in our lives?

Or is it on a different kind of who? Is it on a who, who never changes, who is always there? No matter what life throws at us, God never changes, He is a rock worthy of building our lives on?

Auth. Rev Chris Porter

Minister of Easthampstead Baptist Church in Bracknell, England