A Sense of Home
From Genesis 28 – 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." 17 And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven!"
Robert Creamer regales like the writer I want to grow up to be. He took on colossal figures like Babe Ruth with his pen, but this time it is his own story he breathes life into as the Ken Burns baseball series opens its chapter of the 1940s. Creamer says he was spending a World War II October far from home. It was too warm to evoke thoughts of the World Series. Just as he was feeling forsaken, he says an old sergeant came into the PX and lit up a fragrant cigar. The sweet smell instantly reminded him of the Polo Grounds, and his enlivened imagination added in the salty scent of popcorn to transport them home for a moment.
Jacob in Genesis got that also. A little like Creamer he was far from home. He was feeling the caprices of life as uncomfortably as the rock he had for his pillow. In that place at Bethel, in that presumably fitful sleep, though, he got a glimpse of angels ascending and descending. Where he might have rued the haphazard nature of life when he laid down, he got up a different man. The place that might have seemed strange before is now so inviting that he remains at the house of God.
Whatever seems surreal about our current chapter in life, however often we run up against circumstances that are not of our liking, and however frequently we are reminded, as Jacob might've been, that we have done much to deserve our fugitive status, how close is epiphany, by grace? Even the night's sleep, relates Eliza May Alcott in Hospital Sketches in relation to those facing painful recovery from surgery, can increase our courage where we thought our reserves had been tapped to the last. Given the provisional nature of our calculations as we discern how far away bliss and security are and how scant are the resources we have to reach them, should we not doubt our own doubt first?
As we might not, in God's discernment, be strengthened by visions of angels today, should we not be open to other, more ordinary, image bearers He might use? Has He not put about us grizzled sergeants to give off a fragrance that reminds us His faithfulness has lasted far longer than our years? Our eyes, like Christian's in Pilgrim's Progress, can suddenly perceive a Greatheart just ahead of us on our journey, and our burden is suddenly lighter. The wars we fight in the spirit are still at least as real as World War II. We are not home yet. But we open every sense to reminders that the continuity for which, and for Whom, we were created is not so far away.
Robert Creamer regales like the writer I want to grow up to be. He took on colossal figures like Babe Ruth with his pen, but this time it is his own story he breathes life into as the Ken Burns baseball series opens its chapter of the 1940s. Creamer says he was spending a World War II October far from home. It was too warm to evoke thoughts of the World Series. Just as he was feeling forsaken, he says an old sergeant came into the PX and lit up a fragrant cigar. The sweet smell instantly reminded him of the Polo Grounds, and his enlivened imagination added in the salty scent of popcorn to transport them home for a moment.
Jacob in Genesis got that also. A little like Creamer he was far from home. He was feeling the caprices of life as uncomfortably as the rock he had for his pillow. In that place at Bethel, in that presumably fitful sleep, though, he got a glimpse of angels ascending and descending. Where he might have rued the haphazard nature of life when he laid down, he got up a different man. The place that might have seemed strange before is now so inviting that he remains at the house of God.
Whatever seems surreal about our current chapter in life, however often we run up against circumstances that are not of our liking, and however frequently we are reminded, as Jacob might've been, that we have done much to deserve our fugitive status, how close is epiphany, by grace? Even the night's sleep, relates Eliza May Alcott in Hospital Sketches in relation to those facing painful recovery from surgery, can increase our courage where we thought our reserves had been tapped to the last. Given the provisional nature of our calculations as we discern how far away bliss and security are and how scant are the resources we have to reach them, should we not doubt our own doubt first?
As we might not, in God's discernment, be strengthened by visions of angels today, should we not be open to other, more ordinary, image bearers He might use? Has He not put about us grizzled sergeants to give off a fragrance that reminds us His faithfulness has lasted far longer than our years? Our eyes, like Christian's in Pilgrim's Progress, can suddenly perceive a Greatheart just ahead of us on our journey, and our burden is suddenly lighter. The wars we fight in the spirit are still at least as real as World War II. We are not home yet. But we open every sense to reminders that the continuity for which, and for Whom, we were created is not so far away.
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