Hope

Going Home

One of the things I grew to appreciate about my parents was their commitment to consistently discipline my sister and me when we did things that we weren’t supposed to do. As a child, though, I can’t say I had the same type of warm, fuzzy feelings to the ramifications of punishment. Often time, when my dad would send me to my room as he pondered what those consequences would be, I would start crying even before I knew the outcome. I knew I had done something wrong, I knew that my behavior was going to be corrected, and amidst the tears and clutching my pillow, I would sometimes find myself uttering, “I want to go home.” I never knew why I said that while I was sitting in the relative comfort of my own my room until I was older and understood that while I was at my house, nothing in this world is truly home. Even though as a child I couldn’t make sense of my words, my soul longed for the place where sin was no more; my soul longed for my heavenly home.

This is an important thing to remember. Despite what Aerosmith may have told us, life is not a journey, it is a destination. What really matters in this life are the things that will matter for eternity. The sweet promises of our Heavenly home should be what prompt us to make the hard choices, go the distance and sacrifice our comfort in order to bring Christ glory. We’re going home. A home where there will be no more tears, no more pain, and where we will finally be at peace.

As anyone who has been on a long journey knows, the process of going home after an arduous trip is something that is joyfully anticipated. May the same be true of the journey to our true Home.

Continue Reading

Growth Hope Purpose

Keep On, Keeping On

In Charles Swindoll’s book Hand Me Another Brick, he delineates lessons on leadership based on the story of Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the temple. In it, while recounting how the Israelites became discouraged along the way, Swindoll writes about how discouragement can often “become the catalyst for incredible achievements” because it is often “a barrier that Satan erects between great people and great achievements.” In other words, Satan desires for us to lose heart before we can accomplish the things that God has set before us, and he uses the tool of discouragement to accomplish just that.

If we accept Swindoll’s position (and there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it), than it puts renewed meaning on the command in Scripture that part of our responsibilities as Christians is to encourage other Christians. It’s easy to think of encouragement as just a nice way to make someone else feel better. But our exhortations can do so much more than that. Our encouragement to other believers could be that which prompts them to keep on even after they’ve lost heart. Our encouragement can be that which motivates them to accomplish the great things that God desires for their lives. Let us, therefore, not think of encouragement as something nice, but as something sacred.

Charles Spurgeon, a preacher used by God mightily in his day and whose words still impact hearts for Christ, wrote “Before any great achievement, some measure of the same depression is very usual…..This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry.” Knowing that God may use our words to enrich the ministry of another and further advance His kingdom, may we commit anew not to lose heart, and to encourage each other “all the more” as we “see the Day approaching.” (Heb. 10:25)

Continue Reading